ComGen Data Stream Generator

ComGen is an application delivered free with ComCap 4, designed for testing ComCap. It generate various types of test streams using any or all of the PC serial COM ports and potentially dozens of network streams, UDP Client, TCP Client or TCP Server.

ComGen is a low overhead application, and will run for hundreds of hours, generating millions of lines of test data, to thoroughly test ComCap. It may be installed on the same PC as ComCap, or copied onto remote PCs and run there.

ComGen only has a single window, with five tabs: Data Types, Network, Serial, Settings and Progress, and a right hand log window. Note ComGen does not write any log files.

Data Types defines the actual lines of data that will be streamed, which may be the common between two or more channels. Each different type should be given a name, and a format selected, Simple Text, Masked Text, File - Once, File - Repeat. Masked Text may include time and data mask characters formatted in the same way as ComCap capture Files. Both text formats may include one or more escape sequences:

\#6	Serial Number, where the digit is the number of digits to use, with leading zeros.
\d	Date and time, ie 21-Jun-2006 20:10:12. Note this is a fixed date format, if more flexible formatting is needed use the Time Stamp Each Line option above.
\t	Time, ie 20:10:12
\o	ISO date and time, ie 2006-06-21T20:12:11, recommended for database capture
\s	Space, used as a separator at the start or end of the escaped text, not necessary within the text
\p	PC Name (NETBIOS),ie MYCOMPUTER
\i	Local IP address, ie 192.168.44.55
\m	Channel Name, note spaces may cause problems
\n	New line (CRLF), not generally recommended
\f	Form Feed (FF)), not generally recommended
\c	Carriage Return (CR)), not generally recommended
\l	Line Feed (LF), not generally recommended)
\\	Backslash (\)
\e	Escape (ESC)), not generally recommended
\xnn	Any hex code where nn is 01 to FF
\?	ComGen channel ID
\h	Syslog header

For the two File formats, the button at the end of the row may be clicked to select a text file to stream. The file may be actual data captured by ComCap such as CDRs (two small sample files are supplied) or any other textual data, optionally including the escape sequences above.

Network configuration is very similar to Common Settings, Network, specifying UDP Client, TCP Server or TCP Client parameters. To simplify this grid, retry attempts have been made common to all channels and are specified on the Settings tab, see below.

Clicking Data Type will drop down a list of all the Data Types specified on the previous tab, from which one should be selected.

How Often is used to specify the frequency with which data is generated for this channel, selected from the drop down menu as Each Second, Each Minute, Each Hour and Random (between one and 10 seconds) with the Often By multiplier. So 5 by Each Second is five lines of text each second, 30 by Each Minute is one line every two seconds. ComGen has been tested with up to 50 lines per second, and is limited to 60 lines per second. Note that all lines are sent at the start of the second, rather than being spread out evenly.

This column specifies the Next Serial Number that will be used for the data, if it includes the \# mask.

Serial configuration is very similar to that in Common Settings, Serial Ports. Note that ComGen only support 8 bit’s for data with 1 stop bit and no parity. There are additional columns allowing the data frequency, type and serial numbers to be specified, see above. Some virtual ports may have strange names like CNCA2, but these will work identically to those starting with COM.

The Auto Start tick box specifies that streaming starts as soon as ComGen is run. If ComGen is to run when Windows starts, a shortcut should be placed in the Windows Startup folder.

The Only Send if DSR tick box specifies that serial data should only be sent if the remote computer has raised Data Terminal Ready.

These network settings are common to all network channels, Retry Attempts (zero for continual attempt), Wait Before Retry is the delay between attempts, Don’t Check Connections with Ping Echo is a tick box, TCP/IP Send Keep Alive specifies how often in seconds a keep alive should be sent to stop a router or firewall dropping an idle connection.

When all the settings are completed, click Start to commence data streaming. The Progress tab shows one row for each stream of data being generated, a tick box indicates if that channel is currently streaming data, the total number of lines generated can be seen and the actual text of the last line (which may help getting the Data Type escapes correct).