Peter M. Groen / libmodbus

Commit 2a9a7ddf845f5de8bd935a6280ddf013a3afb9a2

Authored by Stéphane Raimbault
1 parent 1224ec64

Improved README file

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Showing 1 changed file with 48 additions and 13 deletions
README.md
  View file @2a9a7dd
@@ -4,20 +4,24 @@ A groovy modbus library @@ -4,20 +4,24 @@ A groovy modbus library
4 Overview 4 Overview
5 -------- 5 --------
6 6
7 -libmodbus is a free software library to send/receive data with a  
8 -device which respects the Modbus protocol. This library can use a  
9 -serial port or an Ethernet connection. 7 +libmodbus is a free software library to send/receive data with a device which
  8 +respects the Modbus protocol. This library can use a serial port or an Ethernet
  9 +connection.
10 10
11 -The functions included in the library have been derived from the  
12 -Modicon Modbus Protocol Reference Guide which can be obtained from  
13 -Schneider at [www.schneiderautomation.com](http://www.schneiderautomation.com). 11 +The functions included in the library have been derived from the Modicon Modbus
  12 +Protocol Reference Guide which can be obtained from Schneider at
  13 +[www.schneiderautomation.com](http://www.schneiderautomation.com).
14 14
15 -The license of libmodbus is LGPL v2.1 or later and the licence of programs in 15 +The license of libmodbus is *LGPL v2.1 or later* and the licence of programs in
16 tests directory is GPL v3. 16 tests directory is GPL v3.
17 17
18 -The documentation is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 18 +The documentation is available as manual pages (`man libmodbus` to read general
  19 +description and list of available functions) or Web pages
  20 +[www.libmodbus.org/documentation/](http://libmodbus.org/documentation/). The
  21 +documentation is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike
19 License 3.0 (Unported) (<http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/>). 22 License 3.0 (Unported) (<http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/>).
20 23
  24 +
21 The official website is [www.libmodbus.org](http://www.libmodbus.org). 25 The official website is [www.libmodbus.org](http://www.libmodbus.org).
22 26
23 The library is written in C and designed to run on Linux, Mac OS X, FreeBSD and 27 The library is written in C and designed to run on Linux, Mac OS X, FreeBSD and
@@ -26,14 +30,27 @@ QNX and Windows. @@ -26,14 +30,27 @@ QNX and Windows.
26 Installation 30 Installation
27 ------------ 31 ------------
28 32
  33 +You will only need to install automake, autoconf, libtool and a C compiler (gcc
  34 +or clang) to compile the library and asciidoc and xmlto to generate the
  35 +documentation (optional).
  36 +
29 To install, just run the usual dance, `./configure && make install`. Run 37 To install, just run the usual dance, `./configure && make install`. Run
30 -`./autogen.sh` first to generate the `configure` script. 38 +`./autogen.sh` first to generate the `configure` script if required.
  39 +
  40 +You can change installation directory with prefix option, eg. `./configure
  41 +--prefix=/usr/local/`. You have to check that the installation library path is
  42 +properly set up on your system (`/etc/ld.so.conf.d`) and library cache is up to
  43 +date (run `ldconfig` as root if required).
  44 +
  45 +The library provides a `libmodbus.pc` file to use with `pkg-config` to ease your
  46 +program compilation and linking.
31 47
32 If you want to compile with Microsoft Visual Studio, you need to install 48 If you want to compile with Microsoft Visual Studio, you need to install
33 <http://code.google.com/p/msinttypes/> to fill the absence of stdint.h. 49 <http://code.google.com/p/msinttypes/> to fill the absence of stdint.h.
34 50
35 To compile under Windows, install [MinGW](http://www.mingw.org/) and MSYS then 51 To compile under Windows, install [MinGW](http://www.mingw.org/) and MSYS then
36 -select the common packages (gcc, automake, libtool, etc). 52 +select the common packages (gcc, automake, libtool, etc). The directory
  53 +`./src/win32/` contains a Visual C project.
37 54
38 To compile under OS X with [homebrew](http://mxcl.github.com/homebrew/), you will need 55 To compile under OS X with [homebrew](http://mxcl.github.com/homebrew/), you will need
39 to install the following dependencies first: `brew install autoconf automake libtool`. 56 to install the following dependencies first: `brew install autoconf automake libtool`.
@@ -46,10 +63,28 @@ code to fit your needs (it&#39;s Free Software :). @@ -46,10 +63,28 @@ code to fit your needs (it&#39;s Free Software :).
46 63
47 See *tests/README* for a description of each program. 64 See *tests/README* for a description of each program.
48 65
  66 +For a quick test of libmodbus, you can run the following programs in two shells:
  67 +
  68 +1. ./unit-test-server
  69 +2. ./unit-test-client
  70 +
  71 +By default, all TCP unit tests will be executed (see --help for options).
  72 +
49 Report a Bug 73 Report a Bug
50 ------------ 74 ------------
51 75
52 -To report a bug, you can: 76 +Before reporting a bug, take care to read the documentation (RTFM!) and to
  77 +provide enough information:
  78 +
  79 +1. libmodbus version
  80 +2. OS/environment/architecture
  81 +3. libmodbus backend (TCP, RTU, IPv6)
  82 +3. Modbus messages when running in debug mode (`man modbus_set_debug`)
  83 +
  84 +To report your problem, you can:
  85 +
  86 +* fill a bug report on the issue tracker <http://github.com/stephane/libmodbus/issues>.
  87 +* or send an email to the libmodbus mailing list [libmodbus@googlegroups.com](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/libmodbus).
53 88
54 -* fill a bug report on the issue tracker <http://github.com/stephane/libmodbus/issues>  
55 -* or send an email to stephane.raimbault@gmail.com 89 +If your prefer live talk when your're looking for help or to offer contribution,
  90 +there is also a channel called #libmodbus on Freenode.