README

===============
 pygpibtoolkit
===============

pygpibtoolkit_ is a pure Python 3 toolkit for managing and controlling test
equipment via the GPIB_ (aka IEEE-488) bus.

Currently, it only supports Prologix_ compatible GPIB dongles, but support for
linux-gpib_ is planned.

Installation
============

The simplest way to install pygpibtoolkit_ is to use pip_. I strongly recommend
you use virtualenvs_ for this, for example via virtualenvwrapper_ or pew_. Here
is an example session using virtualenvwrapper_ on a Debian stretch machine:

.. code-block:: bash

   david@host:~$ mkvirtualenv -p /usr/bin/python3 pygpib
   Already using interpreter /usr/bin/python3
   Using base prefix '/usr'
   New python executable in /home/david/.virtualenvs/pygpib/bin/python3
   Also creating executable in /home/david/.virtualenvs/pygpib/bin/python
   Installing setuptools, pkg_resources, pip, wheel...done.

   (pygpib) david@host:~$ pip install pygpibtoolkit
   [...]
   Installing collected packages: pyserial, numpy, sip, PyQt5, pyqtgraph, pygpibtoolkit
   Successfully installed PyQt5-5.10.1 numpy-1.14.3 pygpibtoolkit-0.1.0 pyqtgraph-0.10.0 pyserial-3.4 sip-4.19.8
   (pygpib) david@pavo:~$ pygpib-detect --help
   usage: A simple tool for detecting connected GPIB devices [-h] [-d DEVICE] [-v]

   optional arguments:
     -h, --help            show this help message and exit
	 -d DEVICE, --device DEVICE
                           Device of connected Prologix GPIB bundle
                           [/dev/ttyUSB0]
	 -v, --verbose
   (pygpib) david@host:~$ python
   Python 3.5.3 (default, Jan 19 2017, 14:11:04)
   [GCC 6.3.0 20170118] on linux
   Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
   >>> from pygpibtoolkit.prologix import GPIB
   >>> from pygpibtoolkit.gpibcontroller import GPIBController
   >>> cnx = GPIB(device='/dev/ttyUSB0')
   >>> ctl = GPIBController(cnx)
   >>> dvm = c.register_device(24, "HP3456A")
   >>> dvm.S0F1 # set DVM to DC Voltage mode


Please refer to the `user manual`_ for more informations on how to use the
provided tools and how to use the API.


You can get information on pygpibtoolkit on
http://pygpibtoolkit.readthedocs.io

The project is hosted at
https://bitbucket.org/dddouard/pygpibtoolkit

If you have any questions, please mail david.douard@sdfa3.org for support.

pygpibtoolkit_ is (c) 2007-2018 David Douard
and is available under the GNU General Public Licence v2.

.. _pygpibtoolkit: http://pygpibtoolkit.readthedocs.io
.. _`user manual`: http://pygpibtoolkit.readthedocs.io
.. _GPIB: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE-488
.. _Prologix: http://prologix.biz
.. _linux-gpib: https://linux-gpib.sourceforge.io
.. _virtualenvs: https://docs.python.org/dev/library/venv.html
.. _pip: https://packaging.python.org/key_projects/#pip
.. _virtualenvwrapper: http://virtualenvwrapper.readthedocs.io
.. _pew: https://github.com/berdario/pew