pc-ble-driver-py more dongles

[vit bernatik]

Hello I would like to use more dongles with pc-ble-driver-py. For example I want to create multiple advertisers and test that my DUT would see multiple advertisers. I tried to reuse your Advertiser.py example.

The script crashes when I try to open 2nd dongle (calling driver.open())

• Is there a way how to use pc-ble-drive-py to connect multiple nRF51 dognles?
• If not then are you planning to implement such a feature?
• If yes when we can expect such a feature?

[Jørgen Kvalvaag]

I also ran into this issue with another python tool, pynrfjprog. It also crashes on the .open() method call.To work around it I had to wrap into separate multiprocessing.Process instances. Perhaps it could work for your issue too.

[vit bernatik]

I tried to use python threading.Thread and it did not help. Still getting crash on driver.open() even when it is in second thread (Exception in thread Thread-2:...). But even then it would be workaround. I would prefer to be able to run my test in one thread...

[Jørgen Kvalvaag]

Here is a working example with two advertisers:

import sys
from multiprocessing import Condition, Lock
from pc_ble_driver_py.ble_driver import BLEDriver, BLEDriverObserver, BLEAdvData, BLEEvtID
import multiprocessing


class TimeoutObserver(BLEDriverObserver):
    def __init__(self):
        self.cond = Condition(Lock())

    def on_gap_evt_timeout(self, ble_driver, conn_handle, src):
        with self.cond:
            self.cond.notify_all()

    def wait_for_timeout(self):
        with self.cond:
            self.cond.wait()


def main(serial_port, name):
    print("Serial port used: {}".format(serial_port))
    driver      = BLEDriver(serial_port=serial_port)
    observer    = TimeoutObserver()
    adv_data    = BLEAdvData(complete_local_name=name)

    driver.observer_register(observer)
    driver.open()
    driver.ble_enable()
    driver.ble_gap_adv_data_set(adv_data)
    driver.ble_gap_adv_start()
    observer.wait_for_timeout()

    print("Closing")
    driver.close()

if __name__ == "__main__":
    p1 = multiprocessing.Process(target=main, args=('COM45', 'adv1'))
    p2 = multiprocessing.Process(target=main, args=('COM46', 'adv2'))
    p1.start()
    p2.start()
    p1.join()
    p2.join()

[vit bernatik]

Thank you. I confirm it works. I did not notice you propose multiprocessing while I tried threading. But still are u planning to update driver to work in single process? For example when I use pyserial I control easily multiple serial devices from one thread...