Comma Separated Values

Overview

This guide will show you how to correctly print headers and values to serial so that the SerialMonitor.py program will print it correctly to a .csv file.

Instructions

1. Your data should follow a comma-separated values (.csv) format, meaning that each header and value should be separated with commas.

2. Under the dev/data-aq branch of the ESP32PRCodebase repository, you can find the following printCsvInfo function on lines 384-400 of Drive.cpp. This is an example of how to print basic information. This function can be changed however you like.

/**
* @brief prints the internal variables to the serial monitor in a csv format
* this function is important for data acquisition
* @author Corbin Hibler
* Updated: 2023-10-30
*/
void Drive::printCsvInfo() {
	Serial.print(F("L_HAT_Y,"));
	Serial.print(stickForwardRev);
	Serial.print(F(",R_HAT_X,"));
	Serial.print(stickTurn);
	Serial.print(F(",Turn,"));
	Serial.print(lastTurnPwr);
	Serial.print(F(",Left Motor,"));
	Serial.print(requestedMotorPower[0]);
	Serial.print(F(",Right Motor,"));
	Serial.println(requestedMotorPower[1]);
}

3. Put simply, it should look something like this:

Serial.print(F("Awesome Data 1,")); // First header does not need to start with comma, but it must end with one
Serial.print(dataVariable1); // Print the first variable you want to record
Serial.print(F(",Awesome Data 2,")); // All subsequent headers require commas on both sides
Serial.print(dataVariable2); // Print the second variable you want to record
Serial.print(F(",Awesome Data 3,")); // Repeat this format for all data points you need
Serial.println(dataVariable3); // Finish with a data variable, make sure it is a Serial.println function.

4. All data should be on ONE LINE in serial. This means you should only have a single Serial.println() statement at the end of your data. Our serial_monitor.py program running on the Raspberry Pi will now be able to read and transcribe this information to a .csv file, with appropriate headers and values.