gatorcat

gatorcat is an EtherCAT maindevice written in the Zig programming language.

WARNING gatorcat is alpha software. Using it today means participating in its development. You may find bugs or need features implemented before you can use gatorcat effectively.

Documentation

See doc.

Status

Notably Working Features

no config, "just works" executable
automatic configuration to reach OP for most subdevices, via SII and CoE
process data published on zenoh
verifcation of the network contents against an ethercat network information struct (ENI)
cli for scanning a network to generate ENI
can manipulate process data
CoE startup parameters
CLI for scanning networks and getting information about subdevices
multi-OS support (Linux and Windows)

Notably Missing Features

distributed clocks
Ethernet Over EtherCAT (EoE), also AoE, FoE, SoE, VoE
user configurable processing of CoE emergency messages
mapping the mailbox status into the process data
async / event loop frames
multi-threading friendly API
linux XDP
mac-os, embedded support
allocation-free API
cable redundancy
EtherCAT Network Information(ENI) XML Parsing
Segmented SDO transfer
EEPROM write access
Embedded friendly API / timers
Network diagnosis in the CLI (CRC counters etc.)

TODO

sim: add sii
sim: better scan of physical memory
validate individual pdo types at runtime (not just size of pdos)
revise error handling
make a custom @tagName that requires the parameter to be exhaustive

Sponsors

Please consider ❤️ Sponsoring if you depend on this project or just want to see it succeed.

Release Procedure

1. roll version in build.zig.zon
2. commit
3. tag commit
4. push commit, push tags
5. wait for CI pass
6. click release in github