path: root/srec.xml

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<!DOCTYPE refentry PUBLIC 
   "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.1.2//EN"
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<refentry id='srec.5'>
<refmeta>
<refentrytitle>srec</refentrytitle>
<manvolnum>5</manvolnum>
<refmiscinfo class='date'>15 Jul 2005</refmiscinfo>
</refmeta>
<refnamediv id='name'>
<refname>srec</refname>
<refpurpose>Motorola S-record record and file format</refpurpose>
</refnamediv>
<refsect1 id='description'><title>DESCRIPTION</title>

<para>Motorola S-records are a form of simple ASCII encoding for
binary data.  This format is commonly used for firmware uploads to
GPSes, industrial robots, and other kinds of microcontroller-driven
hardware.  It has several convenient properties, including
inspectability, easy editing with any text editor, and checksumming
for verification of transmission across noisy serial lines.</para>

<para>An S-record file consists of a sequence of specially formatted
ASCII character strings. An S-record will be less than or equal to 78
bytes in length.</para>

<para>The order of S-records within a file is of no significance and
no particular order may be assumed.</para>

<para>The general format of an S-record follows:</para>

<screen>
+-------------------//------------------//-----------------------+
| type | count | address  |            data           | checksum |
+-------------------//------------------//-----------------------+
</screen>

<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>type</term> 
<listitem><para>A char[2] field. These characters
describe the type of record (S0, S1, S2, S3, S5, S7, S8, or
S9).</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>count</term>
<listitem><para>A char[2] field. These characters when paired and
interpreted as a hexadecimal value, display the count of remaining
character pairs in the record.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>address</term>
<listitem><para>A char[4,6, or 8] field. These characters grouped and
interpreted as a hexadecimal value, display the address at which the
data field is to be loaded into memory. The length of the field
depends on the number of bytes necessary to hold the address. A 2-byte
address uses 4 characters, a 3-byte address uses 6 characters, and a
4-byte address uses 8 characters.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>data</term>
<listitem><para>A char [0-64] field. These characters when paired and
interpreted as hexadecimal values represent the memory loadable data
or descriptive information.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>checksum</term>
<listitem><para>A char[2] field. These characters when paired and
interpreted as a hexadecimal value display the least significant byte
of the ones complement of the sum of the byte values represented by
the pairs of characters making up the count, the address, and the data
fields.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>

<para>Each record is terminated with a line feed. If any additional or
different record terminator(s) or delay characters are needed during
transmission to the target system it is the responsibility of the
transmitting program to provide them.</para>

<para>There are 9 record types, as follows:</para>

<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>S0</term>
<listitem>
<para>The type of record is 'S0' (0x5330). The address field
is unused and will be filled with zeros (0x0000). The header
information within the data field is divided into the following
subfields.</para>

<orderedlist>
<listitem><para>mname is char[20] and is the module name.</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>ver is char[2] and is the version number.</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>rev is char[2] and is the revision number.</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>description is char[0-36] and is a text comment.</para></listitem>
</orderedlist>

<para>Each of the subfields is composed of ASCII bytes whose
associated characters, when paired, represent one byte hexadecimal
values in the case of the version and revision numbers, or represent
the hexadecimal values of the ASCII characters comprising the module
name and description.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>S1</term>
<listitem><para>The type of record field is 'S1' (0x5331). The address field is
interpreted as a 2-byte address. The data field is composed of memory loadable
data.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>S2</term>
<listitem><para>The type of record field is 'S2' (0x5332). The address field is
interpreted as a 3-byte address. The data field is composed of memory loadable
data.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>S3</term>
<listitem><para>The type of record field is 'S3' (0x5333). The address field is
interpreted as a 4-byte address. The data field is composed of memory loadable
data.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>S5</term>
<listitem><para>The type of record field is 'S5' (0x5335). The address field is
interpreted as a 2-byte value and contains the count of S1, S2, and S3 records
previously transmitted. There is no data field.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>S7</term>
<listitem><para>The type of record field is 'S7' (0x5337). The address
field contains the starting execution address and is interpreted as a
4-byte address. There is no data field.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>S8</term>
<listitem><para>The type of record field is 'S8' (0x5338). The address
field contains the starting execution address and is interpreted as a
3-byte address. There is no data field.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>S9</term>
<listitem><para>The type of record field is 'S9' (0x5339). The address
field contains the starting execution address and is interpreted as a
2-byte address. There is no data field.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>

</refsect1>
<refsect1 id='example'><title>EXAMPLE</title>

<para>Shown below is a typical S-record format file.</para>

<programlisting>
  S00600004844521B
  S1130000285F245F2212226A000424290008237C2A
  S11300100002000800082629001853812341001813
  S113002041E900084E42234300182342000824A952
  S107003000144ED492
  S5030004F8
  S9030000FC
</programlisting>

<para>The file consists of one S0 record, four S1 records, one S5
record and an S9 record.</para>

<para>The S0 record is comprised as follows:</para>

<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>S0 S-record type S0, indicating it is a header 
record.</para></listitem>

<listitem><para>06 Hexadecimal 06 (decimal 6), indicating that six
character pairs (or ASCII bytes) follow.</para></listitem>

<listitem><para>00 00 Four character 2-byte address field, zeroes in 
this example.</para></listitem>

<listitem><para>48 44 52 ASCII H, D, and R - "HDR".</para></listitem>

<listitem><para>1B The checksum.</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>

<para> The first S1 record is comprised as follows:</para>

<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>S1 S-record type S1, indicating it is a data record to
be loaded at a 2-byte address.</para></listitem>

<listitem><para>13 Hexadecimal 13 (decimal 19), indicating that
nineteen character pairs, representing a 2 byte address, 16 bytes of
binary data, and a 1 byte checksum, follow.  </para></listitem>

<listitem><para>00 00 Four character 2-byte address field; hexidecimal
address 0x0000, where the data which follows is to be
loaded.</para></listitem>

<listitem><para>28 5F 24 5F 22 12 22 6A 00 04 24 29 00 08 23 7C
Sixteen character pairs representing the actual binary data.
</para></listitem>

<listitem><para>2A The checksum.</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>

<para>The second and third S1 records each contain 0x13 (19) character
pairs and are ended with checksums of 13 and 52, respectively. The
fourth S1 record contains 07 character pairs and has a checksum of
92.</para>

<para>The S5 record is comprised as follows:</para>

<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>S5 S-record type S5, indicating it is a count record
indicating the number of S1 records </para></listitem>

<listitem><para>03 Hexadecimal 03 (decimal 3), indicating that three
character pairs follow.</para></listitem>

<listitem><para>00 04 Hexadecimal 0004 (decimal 4), indicating that
there are four data records previous to this record.</para></listitem>

<listitem><para>F8 The checksum.</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>


<para>The S9 record is comprised as follows:</para>

<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>S9 S-record type S9, indicating it is a termination
record.</para></listitem>

<listitem><para>03 Hexadecimal 03 (decimal 3), indicating that three
character pairs follow.  </para></listitem>

<listitem><para>00 00 The address field, hexadecimal 0 (decimal 0)
indicating the starting execution address.  </para></listitem>

<listitem><para>FC The checksum.</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>

</refsect1>
<refsect1 id='notes'><title>NOTES</title>

<itemizedlist>
  <listitem><para> There isn't any evidence that Motorola ever
    made use of the header information within the data field of the S0
    record, as described above. This may have been used by some third
    party vendors.</para></listitem>

<listitem><para>The Unix manual page on S-records is the only place that a
    78-byte limit on total record length or 64-byte limit on data
    length is documented. These values shouldn't be trusted for the
    general case.</para></listitem>

<listitem><para> The count field can have values in the range of 0x3
    (2 bytes of address + 1 byte checksum = 3, a not very useful
    record) to 0xff; this is the count of remaining character
    <emphasis>pairs</emphasis>, including checksum.  </para></listitem>

<listitem><para> If you write code to convert S-Records, you should
    always assume that a record can be as long as 514 (decimal)
    characters in length (255 * 2 = 510, plus 4 characters for the
    type and count fields), plus any terminating character(s).  That
    is, in establishing an input buffer in C, you would declare it to
    be an array of 515 chars, thus leaving room for the terminating
    null character.  </para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>

</refsect1>
<refsect1 id='see_also'><title>SEE ALSO</title>
<para>
<citerefentry><refentrytitle>gpsd</refentrytitle><manvolnum>8</manvolnum></citerefentry>,
<citerefentry><refentrytitle>gps</refentrytitle><manvolnum>1</manvolnum></citerefentry>,
<citerefentry><refentrytitle>libgps</refentrytitle><manvolnum>3</manvolnum></citerefentry>,
<citerefentry><refentrytitle>libgpsd</refentrytitle><manvolnum>3</manvolnum></citerefentry>,
<citerefentry><refentrytitle>gpsfake</refentrytitle><manvolnum>1</manvolnum></citerefentry>.
<citerefentry><refentrytitle>gpsprof</refentrytitle><manvolnum>1</manvolnum></citerefentry>.
</para>
</refsect1>

<refsect1 id='maintainer'><title>AUTHOR</title> 

<para>From an anonymous web page, itself claiming to have been derived
from an old Unix manual page. Now maintained by the the GPSD project.
There is a project page for <application>gpsd</application> <ulink
url="http://gpsd.berlios.de/">here</ulink>.</para>

</refsect1>
</refentry>