mpr 1.3

Wrapper for MicroPython mpremote tool

MPR - Wrapper for MicroPython mpremote tool

The mpremote command line tool is used to interact with a MicroPython device over a USB/serial connection. It's an official part of MicroPython, well featured, and it works more reliably than competing tools. However, mpremote exhibits an unconventional and slightly awkward Linux command line interface. mpremote allows "chaining" of multiple sequential commands but the vast majority of users merely want to copy/delete files etc and unfortunately the mpremote user interface compromises usability for those most common use-cases. Also, users expect in-built help for all commands so they can easily see usage and expected arguments (e.g. like git provides).

So mpr presents an alternative "git-like" interface which wraps mpremote and behaves like a conventional Linux command line tool where only a single command is accepted (although note there are global options to connect an explicit device and/or mount a local directory before that command). Unlike mpremote, multiple file/directory arguments can be specified for a command, allowing you to exploit your shell wildcard abilities. Full in-built usage help is available for the tool, and each of it's commands (see Usage section below). It also provides a novel shortcut mechanism to infer target device directories based on where on your local PC you are copying files from or to. There are a few other nice features. The following session shows small examples of mpr in use.

$ tree
./
├── Makefile
├── boot.py
├── main.py
├── package_a.py
└── package_b/
    ├── file1.py
    └── file2.py

# View the inbuild usage/help for the put command:
$ mpr put -h
usage: mpr put [-h] [-f] [-r] src [src ...] dst

Copy one or more local files to directory on device.

positional arguments:
  src              name of local source file[s] on PC
  dst              name of destination dir on device

options:
  -h, --help       show this help message and exit
  -f, --file       destination is file, not directory
  -r, --recursive  copy local directory recursively to / on device

# Copy all Python files to root on device:
$ mpr put *.py /
cp boot.py :boot.py
cp main.py :main.py
cp package_a.py :package_a.py

# Create package_b dir and copy all package_b Python files:
$ mpr mkdir package_b
mkdir :package_b
$ cd package_b
# The following exploits mpr's directory inference feature, see later section
$ mpr put *.py //
cp file1.py :package_b/file1.py
cp file2.py :package_b/file2.py

# Connect to explicit 1st port, mount local dir, and then import main.py:
$ mpr -d id:0001 -m . exec 'import main'
...

I have developed this tool on Linux. The latest version and documentation is available at https://github.com/bulletmark/mpr.

Installation or Upgrade

Arch Linux users can install mpr from the AUR.

Python 3.6 or later is required. The mpremote program must be installed. Note mpr is on PyPI so just ensure that python3-pip and python3-wheel are installed then type the following to install (or upgrade):

$ sudo pip3 install -U mpr

Or, to install from this source repository:

$ git clone http://github.com/bulletmark/mpr
$ cd mpr
$ sudo pip3 install -U .

To upgrade from the source repository:

$ cd mpr # i.e. to git source dir above
$ git pull
$ sudo pip3 install -U .

Usage

Type mpr or mpr -h to view the following usage summary:

usage: mpr [-h] [-d DEVICE] [-l] [-m MOUNT] [-M MOUNT_UNSAFE_LINKS] [-r]
              [-s] [-p PATH_TO_MPREMOTE] [-c] [-v]
              {get,g,put,p,ls,mkdir,mkd,rmdir,rmd,rm,reset,x,repl,r,list,l,devs,run,eval,exec,bootloader,df,setrtc,version,edit}
              ...

This is a command line tool to wrap the MicroPython mpremote tool and provide
a more conventional command line interface. Multiple arguments can be
specified for commands and inbuilt usage help is provided for all commands.

options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -d DEVICE, --device DEVICE
                        serial port/device to connect to, default is "auto"
  -l, --list-device-names
                        just list out device mnemonics that can be used for
                        -d/--device
  -m MOUNT, --mount MOUNT
                        mount local directory on device before command
  -M MOUNT_UNSAFE_LINKS, --mount-unsafe-links MOUNT_UNSAFE_LINKS
                        mount local directory and allow external links
  -r, --reset-hard      do hard reset after command
  -s, --reset-soft      do soft reset after command
  -p PATH_TO_MPREMOTE, --path-to-mpremote PATH_TO_MPREMOTE
                        path to mpremote program, default = "mpremote"
  -c, --completion      output shell TAB completion code
  -v, --verbose         print executed commands (for debug)

Commands:
  {get,g,put,p,ls,mkdir,mkd,rmdir,rmd,rm,reset,x,repl,r,list,l,devs,run,eval,exec,bootloader,df,setrtc,version,edit}
    get (g)             Copy one or more files from device to local directory.
    put (p)             Copy one or more local files to directory on device.
    ls                  List directory on device.
    mkdir (mkd)         Create the given directory[s] on device.
    rmdir (rmd)         Remove the given directory[s] on device.
    rm                  Remove the given file[s] on device.
    reset (x)           Soft or hard reset the device.
    repl (r)            Enter REPL on device.
    list (l, devs)      List currently available devices.
    run                 Run the given local scripts on device.
    eval                Evaluate and print the given strings on device.
    exec                Execute the given strings on device.
    bootloader          Enter bootloader on device.
    df                  Show flash usage on device.
    setrtc              Set the Real Time Clock (RTC) on device.
    version             Show version of mpremote tool.
    edit                Open the mpr configuration file with your $VISUAL
                        editor.

Type "mpr <command> -h" to see specific help/usage for any of the above
commands. Note you can set default options in ~/.config/mpr.conf. Use "mpr
edit" to conveniently change the file.

Type mpr <command> -h to see specific help/usage for any individual command:

Command get

usage: mpr get [-h] [-f] src [src ...] dst

Copy one or more files from device to local directory.

positional arguments:
  src         name of source file[s] on device
  dst         name of local destination dir on PC, or "-" for stdout

options:
  -h, --help  show this help message and exit
  -f, --file  destination is file, not directory

aliases: g

Command put

usage: mpr put [-h] [-f] [-r] src [src ...] dst

Copy one or more local files to directory on device.

positional arguments:
  src              name of local source file[s] on PC
  dst              name of destination dir on device

options:
  -h, --help       show this help message and exit
  -f, --file       destination is file, not directory
  -r, --recursive  copy local directory recursively to / on device

aliases: p

Command ls

usage: mpr ls [-h] [dir]

List directory on device.

positional arguments:
  dir         name of dir (default: /)

options:
  -h, --help  show this help message and exit

aliases: <none>

Command mkdir

usage: mpr mkdir [-h] [-q] dir [dir ...]

Create the given directory[s] on device.

positional arguments:
  dir          name of dir[s]

options:
  -h, --help   show this help message and exit
  -q, --quiet  supress normal and error output

aliases: mkd

Command rmdir

usage: mpr rmdir [-h] [-q] dir [dir ...]

Remove the given directory[s] on device.

positional arguments:
  dir          name of dir[s]

options:
  -h, --help   show this help message and exit
  -q, --quiet  supress normal and error output

aliases: rmd

Command rm

usage: mpr rm [-h] [-q] file [file ...]

Remove the given file[s] on device.

positional arguments:
  file         name of file[s]

options:
  -h, --help   show this help message and exit
  -q, --quiet  supress normal and error output

aliases: <none>

Command reset

usage: mpr reset [-h] [-b] [delay_ms]

Soft or hard reset the device.

positional arguments:
  delay_ms      optional delay before hard reset (millisecs)

options:
  -h, --help    show this help message and exit
  -b, --reboot  Do full reboot, i.e. a hard reset

aliases: x

Command repl

usage: mpr repl [-h] [-c CAPTURE] [-x INJECT_CODE] [-i INJECT_FILE]

Enter REPL on device.

options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -c CAPTURE, --capture CAPTURE
                        capture output of the REPL session to given file
  -x INJECT_CODE, --inject-code INJECT_CODE
                        characters to inject at the REPL when Ctrl-J is
                        pressed
  -i INJECT_FILE, --inject-file INJECT_FILE
                        file to inject at the REPL when Ctrl-K is pressed

aliases: r

Command list

usage: mpr list [-h]

List currently available devices.

options:
  -h, --help  show this help message and exit

aliases: l, devs

Command run

usage: mpr run [-h] script [script ...]

Run the given local scripts on device.

positional arguments:
  script      script to run

options:
  -h, --help  show this help message and exit

aliases: <none>

Command eval

usage: mpr eval [-h] string [string ...]

Evaluate and print the given strings on device.

positional arguments:
  string      string to evaluate

options:
  -h, --help  show this help message and exit

aliases: <none>

Command exec

usage: mpr exec [-h] string [string ...]

Execute the given strings on device.

positional arguments:
  string      string to execute

options:
  -h, --help  show this help message and exit

aliases: <none>

Command bootloader

usage: mpr bootloader [-h]

Enter bootloader on device.

options:
  -h, --help  show this help message and exit

aliases: <none>

Command df

usage: mpr df [-h]

Show flash usage on device.

options:
  -h, --help  show this help message and exit

aliases: <none>

Command setrtc

usage: mpr setrtc [-h]

Set the Real Time Clock (RTC) on device.

options:
  -h, --help  show this help message and exit

aliases: <none>

Command version

usage: mpr version [-h]

Show version of mpremote tool.

options:
  -h, --help  show this help message and exit

aliases: <none>

Command edit

usage: mpr edit [-h]

Open the mpr configuration file with your $VISUAL editor.

options:
  -h, --help  show this help message and exit

aliases: <none>

Compatibility Notes

This section describes differences that users transitioning from mpremote to mpr should be aware of.

The usage/arguments of individual mpremote commands are not easily discoverable. mpr overcomes this by providing in-built full usage help for every individual command:

# See overall help:
$ mpr (or mpr -h)

# See help for a specific command:
$ mpr mkdir -h

Most mpremote commands are available, but some are implemented in a different manner. Commands can not be chained, but that is usually only required for the mpremote connect and mount commands. In mpr, these two commands are available as global command line options, not as explicit commands. So for example, to connect to a specific device and mount your local directory before importing a module in mpremote you can do the following:

$ mpremote connect id:0001 mount . exec 'import test'

The equivalent mpr command is:

$ mpr -d id:0001 -m . exec 'import test'

All device full path names and mpremote defined shortcut mnemonics can be used for the -d/--device option. For convenience, you can type mpr -l to print out the standard mpremote device mnemonics and names which can be used.

The cp command in mpremote is implemented with explicit get and put commands in mpr so there is no need for the user to use a : char to infer direction.

With mpremote all commands that take an argument only accept a single argument whereas with mpr all commands can accept multiple arguments (which mpr implements internally by executing mpremote multiple times). Most specifically, this allow you to exploit wildcard file selection with your shell. E.g to copy all the Python files from your local directory you simply do:

$ mpr put *.py /

With mpremote, you would have to do the above with individual commands, one for each file.

mpr provides shortcut aliases for the most commonly used longer commands, e.g. r for repl, p for put, and g for get. See the main help/usage for a list of all commands and their aliases. So the above command can be tersely typed as:

$ mpr p *.py /

Note that mpr get and put functions always expect the specified target to be a directory, so if you want to rename a file when you copy it then you must explicitly indicate the target to be a file, e.g.

$ mpr get file.py newfile.py

# The above will fetch file.py to file.py/newfile.py which is not what
# you want. Add -f switch to specify that the target is a file:

$ mpr get -f file.py newfile.py

Commands mkdir, rmdir, and rm have a -q/--quiet option added to suppress normal and error output. E.g. you could use this in a script to ignore a mkdir error when the directory already exists.

The fs command is redundant in mpremote so is not implemented in mpr.

soft-reset is not implemented as a separate command in mpr, it is implemented using the -s/--soft option on the reset command.

The cat command is implemented differently. Instead type mpr get file.py - to pipe a file to standard output.

The disconnect, resume, and umount commands are appropriate for use with "chained" commands which are not relevant to mpr so are not implemented.

You can not define shortcuts/macros with mpr, although all the standard macros within mpremote are available in mpr.

There are some undocumented features in mpremote which have been added to mpr as they are discovered.

1. The reset command can accept an optional millisecs delay.
2. The put command (cp in mpremote) can copy a specified local directory recursively to root (/) on the device.

Default Arguments

You can set default starting options for your user in ~/.config/mpr.conf. E.g. use this to set a default --path-to-mpremote setting so it does not have to be specified each time. Blank lines and anything after a # on any line is ignored.

E.g. create ~/.config/mpr.conf with contents:

--path-to-mpremote ~/.local/bin/mpremote

Now you need only specify the command, e.g. mpr ls and it will use that specified ~/.local/bin/mpremote program.

You can use the mpr edit command to conveniently change this file (merely as a shortcut to explicitly specifying your editor and the path to the file). You can keep commented out configurations for a number of different settings in your file (e.g. various --device and/or --mount options) and switch between them by un-commenting the lines you want to use.

Directory/Path Inference

For the following discussion, assume you have a project structured as follows on your local machine and the same directory hierarchy is used on your target device.

./
├── file1.py
├── file2.py
└── mymodule/
    ├── file3.py
    ├── file4.py
    └── templates/
        ├── file5.tpl
        └── file6.tpl

mpr automatically appends the target file name when appropriate, e.g. if you are sitting in the root of the above tree, you only need to type mpr put file1.py / instead of mpr put file1.py /file1.py. For this reason, you can copy multiple files with mpr put file1.py file2.py / or mpr put *.py /. Further to this, mpr can also infer the appropriate target directory as described next.

If you are currently sitting in the directory mymodule/templates/ on your local machine and you want to copy file5.tpl to the /mymodule/templates/ on the target device then the command you would naively use is:

$ mpr put file5.tpl /mymodule/templates

To avoid this verbose typing, you can simply type the following instead:

$ mpr put file5.tpl ///

To then remove that same file from the target device:

$ mpr rm ///file5.tpl

I.e., mpr intercepts the two redundant lead slashes for the above two cases and automatically inserts the parent and current directory names in the path string (determined from the current directory on your local machine). To be clear, if you are sitting one level above in the mymodule directory then the command to copy to that same directory on the target device is:

$ mpr put file3.py //

You can also use this shorthand for source files/dirs by inserting a sequence of leading slashes as a "dummy" argument. Once set, that dummy argument sets the default directory for the following arguments. E.g. if you are sitting in the local templates directory then to delete all the *.tpl files in the same directory on the target you can type:

$ mpr rm /// file5.tpl file6.tpl

or just:

$ mpr rm /// *.tpl

Note the 2nd "trick" above exploits the wildcard file list generated by your shell to pass those local file names to the remote device. It assumes those same names exist in the analogous directory there (and arguably this trick should be avoided!).

Path to mpremote

Many using this program possibly also have downloaded the MicroPython source tree for building firmware images. E.g. the source installed at /opt/MicroPython/ also includes mpremote at tools/mpremote/mpremote.py. So for this reason mpr does not require mpremote to be explicitly installed as a formal package, nor via pip.

The mpr option --path-to-mpremote defaults to mpremote which will normally be found by your shell in a standard location (e.g. /usr/bin/mpremote) but if you have the MicroPython source installed somewhere then you don't need to formally install mpremote and can instead just set e.g. --path-to-mpremote /opt/micropython/tools/mpremote/mpremote.py in your ~/.config/mpr.conf as a default argument as described in a previous section.

Shell Tab Completion

If you install the Python 3 argcomplete package:

$ sudo pip3 install -U argcomplete

Then mpr will automatically use this to enable shell tab completion on mpr commands and options. You merely need to type the following to source the necessary shell code into your current terminal session (or add this line to your ~/.bashrc to enable it permanently):

$ . <(mpr -c)

License

Copyright (C) 2022 Mark Blakeney. This program is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License. This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/ for more details.