Wrapper for MicroPython mpremote tool
Project description
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] [-x]
[-b] [-p PATH_TO_MPREMOTE] [-c] [-v]
{get,g,put,p,copy,c,ls,mkdir,mkd,rmdir,rmd,rm,reset,x,reboot,b,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
-x, --reset do soft reset after command
-b, --reboot do hard reboot 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,copy,c,ls,mkdir,mkd,rmdir,rmd,rm,reset,x,reboot,b,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.
copy (c) Copy one of more remote files to a 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 reset the device.
reboot (b) Hard reboot 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 copy
usage: mpr copy [-h] [-f] src [src ...] dst
Copy one of more remote files to a directory on device.
positional arguments:
src name of source file[s] on device
dst name of destination dir on device
options:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-f, --file destination is file, not directory
aliases: c
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]
Soft reset the device.
options:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
aliases: x
Command reboot
usage: mpr reboot [-h] [delay_ms]
Hard reboot the device.
positional arguments:
delay_ms optional delay before reboot (millisecs)
options:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
aliases: b
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 implemented in mpr as reset. Hardware reset is
implemented in mpr as reboot. Mpr also adds global options to reset
(-x/--reset) or reboot (-b/--reboot) after the specified command is
run.
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.
- The
rebootcommand can accept an optional millisecs delay. - The
putcommand (cpin 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.
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