hartl3y94 / python-can-monitor

A Python script to display data from a CAN bus

Python CAN bus monitor

This script allows you to read live data from a CAN bus or offline CAN data from a file and display it in an easy-to-read table.

Live

It's primarily meant to be used in conjunction with an Arduino and a CAN bus shield. You'll need this Arduino sketch to make it work.

You can also use any serial device capable of reading a CAN bus. It expects data in this format:

FRAME:ID=X:LEN=Y:ZZ:ZZ:ZZ:ZZ:ZZ:ZZ:ZZ:ZZ

where X is the CAN frame ID (decimal), Y is the number of bytes in the frame, and ZZ:ZZ... are the actual bytes (in hex).

Offline

You can also read CAN frames from a text file. This is designed to read log files generated by candump (from can-utils) with -l option.

The log must contain one message per line. Messages must be stored in this format:

[(<timestamp>)] <interface> <frame_id>#<frame_data>

where frame id and data are in hex (upper case letters).

Example:

(1499430972.167877) can0 12E#C77FFE7FD0FFFF00

Usage

Install the dependencies (preferably in a virtualenv)

pip install -e .

Launch the script

canmonitor <serial device> <baud rate>

Or

canmonitor -f <file name>

Press Q at any time to exit the script.

Example

canmonitor /dev/tty.usbmodem1451 115200
canmonitor -f can_log.log