Incoming TCP/IP buffer in file transfer

leonardolt

 Greetings!

 I'm working in an application where there is an external PC coontrolling robot's operation. In some situations it is necessary that this PC updates a module in the robot controller. I've done this by sending the module as string parts via TCP/IP for the robot.

 It workerd quite as I expected, except for some limitations: the maximum rawbytes lenght is 1024 bytes and the maximum string size is 80 chars. This limitations let the transfering process very lazy, and blocks both the PC and the robot controller, becouse it is necessary to to wait some time fot the raw data to be red and the strings to be extracted.

 If I try to send the file without wainting some time between the sendings, I get no error related to the data transfer. On the other had, the instruction that reads the incoming bytes fails due to an overlimit in indexing more than 1024 bytes in the rawbytes buffer.

 What I would like to know is if there is a way I could read the TCP bufferd bytes without getting this error. It seem that all sent bytes (100kB) are there in some buffer, but I can't read them into a rawbytes variable becouse ot the 1024 limit.

 If tat's an unsolvable problem, does anyone know another way to send this file programaticaly from de PC to the controller?
 

 Thanks for all!
Leo

Henrik Berlin

Moved to RobotWare forum.

mattdavis

I send programs to the robot just with an FTP client usually. You should be able to do that without too many issues. 

leonardolt

Thank you for you reply, mattdavis.

 Do you send programs to the robot while it is running or when it is stopped? I can exchange files using RobotStudio, but that's not what I need.
 Could you clarify how is this FTP session?

 I don't know if I was clear enough in my first post, but my problem is that I need to update a file in the robot's "home" directory when tho robot is working. The great issue is that it can't be done by RobotStudio or any other program but mine.

mattdavis

Whilst the robot is running I can use an ftp client to upload a new program to the home directory, but you need to stop the robot with the pendant or robtstudio to load the new program as far as im aware.

leonardolt

 Thanks, mattdavis. I'm not sure that an ftp client is what I'm looking for, but I'll investigate it.

 Is this ftp client you use the one provided by Robot studio fore file transfering or it is another feature/plugin you installed? How should I proceed to configure that to receive files while the robot is running in automatic mode?

Thanks
Leo


Leo

mattdavis

I have used the one in robotstudio as well as filezilla, so i believe any standard ftp client will work, you might be able to find a free library that implements ftp inside you program even?

Our robot does have quite a few options enabled, but if you already have the pc interface then I would think thats all the setup you need. It works on my other robot if I connect through the service port, and that doesnt have pc interface.

leonardolt

Thank you, mattdavis.
I was studying about this ftp client built in robotstudio and figured out that I'll need to create an ftp server in my pc interface. Even if it is not as simple as I wonder, it's a potecial solution. So I'll spend some more time working on this ftp server.

When I have a solution I post it back.
Thanks
Leo

leonardolt

Mattdavis, I tried to build the ftp file transfer but I think I don'd have the ftp client enabled. I can exchange information using TCP/IP normally, but just that.

For a moment I'll let things how they are and I'll trck some other problems.

 Thanks for all
Leo