uflash3 3.0.1

A module and utility to flash Python onto the BBC micro:bit.

A community fork of uFlash.

A utility for flashing the BBC micro:bit with Python scripts and the MicroPython runtime. You pronounce the name of this utility “micro-flash”. ;-)

It provides three services:

1. A library of functions to programatically create a hex file and flash it onto a BBC micro:bit.

2. A command line utility called uflash that will flash Python scripts onto a BBC micro:bit.

3. A command line utility called uextract that will extract Python scripts from a hex file created by uFlash.

Several essential operations are implemented:

• Encode Python into the hex format.

• Embed the resulting hexified Python into the MicroPython runtime hex.

• Extract an encoded Python script from a MicroPython hex file.

• Discover the connected micro:bit.

• Copy the resulting hex onto the micro:bit, thus flashing the device.

• Specify the MicroPython runtime hex in which to embed your Python code.

Installation

To install simply type:

$ pip install uflash3

NB: You must use a USB data cable to connect the micro:bit to your computer (some cables are power only). You’re in good shape if, when plugged in, the micro:bit appears as a USB storage device on your file system.

Linux users: For uflash to work you must ensure the micro:bit is mounted as a USB storage device. Usually this is done automatically. If not you’ve probably configured automounting to be off. If that’s the case, we assume you have the technical knowledge to mount the device yourself or to install the required kernel modules if they’re missing. Default installs of popular Linux distros “should just work” (tm) out of the box given a default install.

Command Usage

To read help simply type:

$ uflash --help

or:

$ uextract --help

Development

The source code is hosted in GitHub. Please feel free to fork the repository. Assuming you have Git installed you can download the code from the canonical repository with the following command:

$ git clone https://github.com/blackteahamburger/uflash.git

To locally install your development version of the module into a virtualenv, run the following command:

$ pip install -e ".[dev]"

This also ensures that you have the correct dependencies for development.

There is a Makefile that helps with most of the common workflows associated with development.