MDF4 Converters

This project includes library and converter tools for converting raw MDF4 log files. These converters are designed for use with the CANedge CAN bus data loggers from CSS Electronics.

---

Key features

1. Drag & drop log files to produce popular output formats
1. Drag & drop folders to easily batch convert files
2. Support for e.g. .csv, .asc (Vector), .trc (PEAK), .txt (CLX000) and more
3. Optionally use in any programming language for batch scripted processing
4. Optionally use via CLI for advanced options (e.g. folder conversion)
5. Open source - easily create your own converters or tweak existing ones
6. Windows/Linux support

---

Library structure

The overall structure is as follows:

• The library that handles finalization and sorting is found in Library
• The generic tools utilising the library are found in Tools
  • ASC contains an exporter to ASCII format for e.g. Vector tools
  • CLX000 contains an exporter to the raw log file format for CLX000 CAN loggers
  • CSV contains an exporter to comma separated files
  • Finalizer contains a tool for finalization & optional sorting of the MDF4 files
  • PCAP contains an exporter to the PCAP-NG format for import into Wireshark
  • Shared contains a base class library for all the other tools
  • SocketCAN contains an exporter to the log format from the SocketCAN utilities in Linux

---

Converter tools

All the tools support drag-and-drop, where the default values are used to convert the data from the MDF4 file into each tool's respective format. Additional options are present for all tools, which can be seen by running the tool in the command line and passing either no arguments or --help.

For details on using the converters, see the CANedge Intros and the README.md in the Tools/ folder.

---

Building

The project uses CMake for configuration. All the project files are supposed to be built out-of-source, while the main configuration will fetch and build the dependencies under the External folder.

If publishing any of the build artifacts, remember to change the "Company Name" in Tools/CMakeLists.txt, since the information is embedded in the executable targets.

For building under Windows using MinGW-64, Clang has to be configured as the compiler (details)

---

Quick start

Create a new folder for out-of-source building:

mkdir build
cd build
cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release ..

This should notify that the external dependencies are missing. Build these using:

make Boost_builder
make botan_builder
make fmt_builder
make heatshrink_builder
make tinyxml2_builder
make appimage_builder (Linux only)

Refresh the project configuration now that the dependencies are present:

cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release ..

Build either all the targets, or the requested target.

make target

To see a list of currently available targets, CMake provides a help target, which list currently available targets.

make help

For convenience, targets for building all the tools are present:

• ToolsRelease: Build and pack the tools

In Windows, the latter option gathers all the executables in the Release folder under the current build directory. Under Linux, this creates AppImage packages (Still present in each tool's folder). The build system must have a C++17 compiler, for instance Ubuntu 18.04 LTS. Build dependencies include python and pkg-config.

---

Dependencies

The project uses the following external libraries, apart from the standard library for C++17:

• AppImage packer - MIT license
• Boost - Boost license
• Botan - Simplified BSD license
• fmt - Custom license, see repository for details
• heatshrink - ISC license
• tinyxml2 - Zlib license

In the project the following header-only libraries are used and distributed:

• mio - MIT license
• SPIMPL - Boost license

Boost license

Copyright Beman Dawes, Daniel Frey, David Abrahams, 2003-2004. Copyright Rene Rivera 2004-2005. Distributed under the Boost Software License, Version 1.0.