SOLVED: Strings (data value), Xplane and Mobiflight | MobiFlight | Page 1

tropic pollen Mar 9, 2024, 7:51 PM

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Hi everyone!

I am that annoying guy always asking about outputting strings from xplane. I am happy to say i found a solution. I want to share my solution, it may be particular, but may be useful.
Xplane strings, which can be "string" or "data" value type are arrays, which are not displayed as so in datareftool. But because they are arrays, they contain elements ([0,1,2.... etc]). Now if you try to output them in mobiflight, you will see double characters that are meaningless on the first look, but as it came out, they have a meaning: it is an ASCII code of an array element (subelement). By adding "if"- condition for each digit (cycling through needed letters, it is not necessary to cycle through an entire English alphabet, for me W N E S compass was enough), you can modify it. As for numbers, which are obviously not integers, but "text numbers" it is enough to subtract 48, which is "0" value in ASCII table. Maybe my little investigation here can be useful for someone who has troubles with outputting strings and chars from xplane, as well as for developers of Mobiflight.
Sorry for my bad English
And a little proof pic attached.

tranquil grove Mar 9, 2024, 10:08 PM

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oh my god 🙂 this is genius and dumb (on xplanes side) at the same time. Thanks for sharing this information, it indeed can be useful if you need to do something specific like your case.

shy wraith Mar 10, 2024, 12:19 PM

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Hi, great solution. But next time please post Xplane specific issues under xplane topic. Better to have all the goodies there 🙂

tropic pollen Mar 10, 2024, 12:25 PM

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tranquil grove oh my god 🙂 this is genius and dumb (on xplanes side) at the same time. Thanks ...

also i tested: this solution is 100% capable to make vga/hdmi-less FMC unit, that works directly from usb and mobiflight , it is just needed to combine i2c displays or make a custom adafruit display, which also doesnt require vga/hdmi and works from any supported arduino board. Configuration of it of course will be messy, but it is worth it i guess

tranquil grove Mar 10, 2024, 12:54 PM

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wait, you mean all the lines on the fmc screen are separate datarefs?

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could be a custom output device I think

tropic pollen Mar 10, 2024, 12:56 PM

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tranquil grove wait, you mean all the lines on the fmc screen are separate datarefs?

No its a row, but the saving thing is that we know exactly length of a fmc display width (in characters), so you can "cut" needed length from that row (about 200 characters or so) and paste them into needed location on a display. Voila😁

tropic pollen Mar 10, 2024, 12:57 PM

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tranquil grove could be a custom output device I think

exactly

tranquil grove Mar 10, 2024, 12:58 PM

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except for the ascii decoding part right now 🙂

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but you could do it in the arduino I guess

tropic pollen Mar 10, 2024, 12:58 PM

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tranquil grove except for the ascii decoding part right now 🙂

You can decode it via MF basic logic tool "if", but it will be a novel, not a code 😁

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But still it is doable

tranquil grove Mar 10, 2024, 12:59 PM

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but we cannot send an array right now I guess?

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or maybe we can, havwnt tried

tropic pollen Mar 10, 2024, 12:59 PM

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Nope. Unfortunately if you output it directly , you will get no value on output

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I was struggling with it for a year and only found occasionally this thing this night

tranquil grove Mar 10, 2024, 1:00 PM

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but what would you get on arduino side? some delimited character string?

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yeah this is an interesting find

tropic pollen Mar 10, 2024, 1:01 PM

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tranquil grove but what would you get on arduino side? some delimited character string?

In mobiflight - nothing. Empty field. But its not MFs fault, its xplanes specificity

tranquil grove Mar 10, 2024, 1:01 PM

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can you file a feature requedt on github and document what you learned there?

tropic pollen Mar 10, 2024, 1:01 PM

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Yes i will do today

tranquil grove Mar 10, 2024, 1:01 PM

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so we wont forget about it

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cool

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maybe there is a proper way to read strings too but I wonder if this is just for zibo or a general thing for strings?

tropic pollen Mar 10, 2024, 1:03 PM

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tranquil grove maybe there is a proper way to read strings too but I wonder if this is just for...

I tested on FF767/757 (they have like 80% same datarefs for obvious reasons). But i am more than sure that this implementation won't differ too much on any other xp aircraft

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Including zibo

modern drum Mar 10, 2024, 1:09 PM

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I think Sebastián has this fix already in mind.

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Handling string datarefs I mean

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https://github.com/MobiFlight/MobiFlight-Connector/issues/1026

GitHub

Get String Datarefs XplaneDirect Connection · Issue #1026 · MobiFli...

Describe the bug I get only a empty return when i try to read out a string datatyp Dataref out of Xplane, like "sim/aircraft/view/acf_tailnum " Steps To Reproduce Steps to reproduce the b...

tropic pollen Mar 10, 2024, 1:23 PM

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modern drum https://github.com/MobiFlight/MobiFlight-Connector/issues/1026

I know this topic.

native xpuipc strings are outputted without a problem, but:
custom aircraft non-integer data is still unoutputtable;
non-integer containing arrays in xp are not outputtable as well: basically, a string in xplane is an array, consisting of elements, which are not integers. In simple words, for now, its impossible to directly output in mobiflight non-integer values from xplane.

I found a solution for this i guess, im filing a github request now, maybe i can help a little bit with it🙂

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Also i wouldnt use "string" term within xplane. I would prefer "non-integer", because mf can't output anything from xplane, that is not a number

tranquil grove Mar 10, 2024, 1:48 PM

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you could comment on that issue that @modern drum linked and mention the one you are filing (and mention #1026 ony yours)

tropic pollen Mar 10, 2024, 1:49 PM

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tranquil grove can you file a feature requedt on github and document what you learned there?

Done

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I filed a new request.

tranquil grove Mar 10, 2024, 1:49 PM

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just type #1026 on a comment and it should find the one

tropic pollen Mar 10, 2024, 1:49 PM

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With detailed instructions

tranquil grove Mar 10, 2024, 1:49 PM

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yeah that is fine

tropic pollen Mar 10, 2024, 1:49 PM

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Can you check it if its there

tranquil grove Mar 10, 2024, 1:49 PM

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linking them together is probably good so that they are easy to find that they are somewhat related

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lets see

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yeah its https://github.com/MobiFlight/MobiFlight-Connector/issues/1751

GitHub

Xplane and non-integer datarefs · Issue #1751 · MobiFlight/MobiFlig...

Good day, mobiflight team! I found a way to output non-integers from x-plane (meaning, now i can output anything i want from x-plane in MF), and i would like to share it, because i couldnt find thi...

tropic pollen Mar 10, 2024, 1:50 PM

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Yep thank you

tranquil grove Mar 10, 2024, 1:50 PM

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added a comment

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it links them both ways

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by the way, @tropic pollen I think you can create custom XPUIPC offsets in the xpuipc config

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or with the flywithlua plugin?

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if xpuipc string reading works?

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so that you could make custom offsets

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not sure if it would be possible to take the array style things and create regular strings into your own datarefs in lua too?

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or is it just the fsuipc that currently works with strings, not the native dataref support? Havent really done much xplane stuff in this area yet

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or maybe its like you said in https://discord.com/channels/608690978081210392/1177944954652332032 that its equally lot of work either way

tropic pollen Mar 10, 2024, 1:59 PM

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So @tranquil grove as i have just written in a wrong old topic

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yes xpuipc coding works, but you still must code things character by character

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i wasnt able to code it, so i went via mobiflight, and it worked for me

#SOLVED: Strings (data value), Xplane and Mobiflight