Shell - Segment Display 4x7 Bricklet

This is the description of the Shell API bindings for the Segment Display 4x7 Bricklet. General information and technical specifications for the Segment Display 4x7 Bricklet are summarized in its hardware description.

An installation guide for the Shell API bindings is part of their general description.

Examples

The example code below is Public Domain (CC0 1.0).

Simple

Download (example-simple.sh)

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#!/bin/sh
# Connects to localhost:4223 by default, use --host and --port to change this

uid=XYZ # Change XYZ to the UID of your Segment Display 4x7 Bricklet
digits=(63 6 91 79 102 109 125 7 127 111 119 124 57 94 121 113)

# Write "4223" to the display with full brightness without colon
segments=${digits[4]},${digits[2]},${digits[2]},${digits[3]}
tinkerforge call segment-display-4x7-bricklet $uid set-segments $segments 7 false

API

Possible exit codes for all tinkerforge commands are:

  • 1: interrupted (ctrl+c)
  • 2: syntax error
  • 21: Python 2.5 or newer is required
  • 22: Python argparse module is missing
  • 23: socket error
  • 24: other exception
  • 25: invalid placeholder in format string
  • 26: authentication error
  • 201: timeout occurred
  • 209: invalid argument value
  • 210: function is not supported
  • 211: unknown error

Command Structure

The common options of the call and dispatch commands are documented here. The specific command structure is shown below.

tinkerforge call segment-display-4x7-bricklet [<option>..] <uid> <function> [<argument>..]
Parameters:
  • <uid> – Type: String
  • <function> – Type: String

The call command is used to call a function of the Segment Display 4x7 Bricklet. It can take several options:

  • --help shows help for the specific call command and exits
  • --list-functions shows a list of known functions of the Segment Display 4x7 Bricklet and exits
tinkerforge dispatch segment-display-4x7-bricklet [<option>..] <uid> <callback>
Parameters:
  • <uid> – Type: String
  • <callback> – Type: String

The dispatch command is used to dispatch a callback of the Segment Display 4x7 Bricklet. It can take several options:

  • --help shows help for the specific dispatch command and exits
  • --list-callbacks shows a list of known callbacks of the Segment Display 4x7 Bricklet and exits
tinkerforge call segment-display-4x7-bricklet <uid> <function> [<option>..] [<argument>..]
Parameters:
  • <uid> – Type: String
  • <function> – Type: String

The <function> to be called can take different options depending of its kind. All functions can take the following options:

  • --help shows help for the specific function and exits

Getter functions can take the following options:

  • --execute <command> shell command line to execute for each incoming response (see section about output formatting for details)

Setter functions can take the following options:

  • --expect-response requests response and waits for it

The --expect-response option for setter functions allows to detect timeouts and other error conditions calls of setters as well. The device will then send a response for this purpose. If this option is not given for a setter function then no response is sent and errors are silently ignored, because they cannot be detected.

tinkerforge dispatch segment-display-4x7-bricklet <uid> <callback> [<option>..]
Parameters:
  • <uid> – Type: String
  • <callback> – Type: String

The <callback> to be dispatched can take several options:

  • --help shows help for the specific callback and exits
  • --execute <command> shell command line to execute for each incoming response (see section about output formatting for details)

Basic Functions

tinkerforge call segment-display-4x7-bricklet <uid> set-segments <segments> <brightness> <colon>
Parameters:
  • <segments> – Type: Int Array, Length: 4, Range: [0 to 127]
  • <brightness> – Type: Int, Range: [0 to 7]
  • <colon> – Type: Bool
Output:
  • no output

The 7-segment display can be set with bitmaps. Every bit controls one segment:

Bit order of one segment

For example to set a "5" you would want to activate segments 0, 2, 3, 5 and 6. This is represented by the number 0b01101101 = 0x6d = 109.

The brightness can be set between 0 (dark) and 7 (bright). The colon parameter turns the colon of the display on or off.

tinkerforge call segment-display-4x7-bricklet <uid> get-segments
Output:
  • segments – Type: Int Array, Length: 4, Range: [0 to 127]
  • brightness – Type: Int, Range: [0 to 7]
  • colon – Type: Bool

Returns the segment, brightness and color data as set by set-segments.

Advanced Functions

tinkerforge call segment-display-4x7-bricklet <uid> start-counter <value-from> <value-to> <increment> <length>
Parameters:
  • <value-from> – Type: Int, Range: [-999 to 9999]
  • <value-to> – Type: Int, Range: [-999 to 9999]
  • <increment> – Type: Int, Range: [-999 to 9999]
  • <length> – Type: Int, Unit: 1 ms, Range: [0 to 232 - 1]
Output:
  • no output

Starts a counter with the from value that counts to the to value with the each step incremented by increment. length is the pause between each increment.

Example: If you set from to 0, to to 100, increment to 1 and length to 1000, a counter that goes from 0 to 100 with one second pause between each increment will be started.

Using a negative increment allows to count backwards.

You can stop the counter at every time by calling set-segments.

tinkerforge call segment-display-4x7-bricklet <uid> get-counter-value
Output:
  • value – Type: Int, Range: [-999 to 9999]

Returns the counter value that is currently shown on the display.

If there is no counter running a 0 will be returned.

tinkerforge call segment-display-4x7-bricklet <uid> get-identity
Output:
  • uid – Type: String, Length: up to 8
  • connected-uid – Type: String, Length: up to 8
  • position – Type: Char, Range: [a to h, z]
  • hardware-version – Type: Int Array, Length: 3
    • 0: major – Type: Int, Range: [0 to 255]
    • 1: minor – Type: Int, Range: [0 to 255]
    • 2: revision – Type: Int, Range: [0 to 255]
  • firmware-version – Type: Int Array, Length: 3
    • 0: major – Type: Int, Range: [0 to 255]
    • 1: minor – Type: Int, Range: [0 to 255]
    • 2: revision – Type: Int, Range: [0 to 255]
  • device-identifier – Type: Int, Range: [0 to 216 - 1]

Returns the UID, the UID where the Bricklet is connected to, the position, the hardware and firmware version as well as the device identifier.

The position can be 'a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e', 'f', 'g' or 'h' (Bricklet Port). A Bricklet connected to an Isolator Bricklet is always at position 'z'.

The device identifier numbers can be found here

Callbacks

Callbacks can be used to receive time critical or recurring data from the device:

tinkerforge dispatch segment-display-4x7-bricklet <uid> example

The available callbacks are described below.

Note

Using callbacks for recurring events is always preferred compared to using getters. It will use less USB bandwidth and the latency will be a lot better, since there is no round trip time.

tinkerforge dispatch segment-display-4x7-bricklet <uid> counter-finished
Output:
  • no output

This callback is triggered when the counter (see start-counter) is finished.