meshtastic
Update Python CLI Guide
The following meshtastic command arguments don't work reliably. They either need to be fixed or the documentation updated:
--test This argument throws the following error message: "Test module could not be important. Ensure you have the 'dotmap' module installed."
--reply This argument results in a connection to the radio, then no further apparent action. Eventually, it fails with the following error message:
Exception in thread Thread-2:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/home/rhadow/miniconda3/lib/python3.12/threading.py", line 1073, in _bootstrap_inner
self.run()
--set-owner-short This argument does not reliably reset the last four characters of the MAC address to uppercase. At least, it doesn't always stick.
--dest user.id (i.e. --dest '!b03bb4f8') works fine; num (i.e. --dest 2956702968) doesn't. The best you can hope for is "Received an implicit ACK. Packet will likely arrive, but cannot be guaranteed." What is an implicit ACK?
The --test error is caused by dotmap not being installed because in the pyprojecttoml it is marked as optional. On a poetry install you need the --all-extras flag or --extras cli so the exception message could be clarified to "Test module could not be important. Ensure you have the 'dotmap' module installed. Did you use --all-extras with poetry install?" or removing the optional in the toml dotmap = { version = "^1.3.30" } Do you have a preference on which?
I have no preference. I never used a poetry install, to the best of my recollection.
That raises another point: CRUD. If one can install dotmap (create), there whould be a way to verify its installation (read), and eliminate it (delete).
Ok I glazed over the make file. I see it uses pip by default. Maybe it's more that there needs to be a BUILD.md of some kind? The poetry lock file just stood out to me so I assumed poetry as the default and have been using that.
Is anyone really set on keeping dotmap? I think it could be eliminated since it's not pulled in the default pip install. There's other onReceive functions that don't use it and from what I see test.py is the only place it's used (it's also in mesh_interface.py but those lines are commented out).
If Dotmap is still wanted the make file could be changes to add a new command for when someone wants to run --test
As to implicit ACK, it seems that this is an acknowledgement that the message was received by some other node and perhaps retransmitted. There's a big assumption that the destination node is alive in the mesh within n hops. I suggest that implicit ACK is an unfortunate choice of working. Received and forwarded or Receved and forwarded. Delivery not guaranteed would be better..