Many bugs in API documentation
Posted: Sat Oct 22, 2016 5:31 am
Hi
I just bought two SDRPlay RSP1 units, one for me and one for a friend,
with the intention of developing our own software for Linux. We need
some functionality for specific uses of a wideband SDR receiver running
on the Linux OS.
The main reason for choosing SDRPlay was the availability of an API for
Linux _and_ _with_ an apparently detailed and useful API documentation.
Other competing devices, as far as I could tell by searching, did not
supply API documentation, nor were email enquiries on the subject replied.
I already have a working application which uses an RTL-SDR device via the
librtlsdr API, (itself sparsely documented) and I am now trying to add code
to the app to work with the RSP1. Unfortunately though, I very quickly run
into very buggy code when I tried to use the API documentation, especially
the example code in Section 4, API Usage. Some functions shown there have
the number of arguments that does not agree with the function's protoype,
as shown in the API doc (usually less). Some function prototypes, as shown
in the API doc, actually do not agree with the prototypes in the header
file <mirsdrapi-rsp.h> so it was necessary for me to pick up the protoypes
from the header file itself.
I eventually managed to get the example code to work but not before a lot
of time and effort was spent to identify and fix all these bugs. So, I am
now wondering if I will be able to eventually develop the code so that it
is incorporated in my application and whether I will get useful results.
I am also wondering how other developers fared with the API documentation
and how they managed to produce apps like SDRUno and others that are
available, for Linux and Windows. Is there a "proper" API documentation,
perhaps an "insider's version", that works properly? Have any other devs
came across this problem? I would like to know before I spend a lot of
time and effort on this effort!
My thanks in advance!
I just bought two SDRPlay RSP1 units, one for me and one for a friend,
with the intention of developing our own software for Linux. We need
some functionality for specific uses of a wideband SDR receiver running
on the Linux OS.
The main reason for choosing SDRPlay was the availability of an API for
Linux _and_ _with_ an apparently detailed and useful API documentation.
Other competing devices, as far as I could tell by searching, did not
supply API documentation, nor were email enquiries on the subject replied.
I already have a working application which uses an RTL-SDR device via the
librtlsdr API, (itself sparsely documented) and I am now trying to add code
to the app to work with the RSP1. Unfortunately though, I very quickly run
into very buggy code when I tried to use the API documentation, especially
the example code in Section 4, API Usage. Some functions shown there have
the number of arguments that does not agree with the function's protoype,
as shown in the API doc (usually less). Some function prototypes, as shown
in the API doc, actually do not agree with the prototypes in the header
file <mirsdrapi-rsp.h> so it was necessary for me to pick up the protoypes
from the header file itself.
I eventually managed to get the example code to work but not before a lot
of time and effort was spent to identify and fix all these bugs. So, I am
now wondering if I will be able to eventually develop the code so that it
is incorporated in my application and whether I will get useful results.
I am also wondering how other developers fared with the API documentation
and how they managed to produce apps like SDRUno and others that are
available, for Linux and Windows. Is there a "proper" API documentation,
perhaps an "insider's version", that works properly? Have any other devs
came across this problem? I would like to know before I spend a lot of
time and effort on this effort!
My thanks in advance!