Block types in GNU Radio - gnuradio

I am still learning GNU Radio and I have trouble understanding something about signal processing block type. I understand that if I create a block taking let say 2 samples in the input and output 4 samples, it will be an interpolator of 2.
But now, I would like to create a block which will be a framer. So, it will have two inputs and one output. The block will receives the n samples from the first input, then take m inputs from the second input and append to the samples received from input one, and then output them. In this case, my samples are supposed to be bytes.
How to proceed in this case please ? Am I taking the right path like that? Do any one know to proceed with this type of scenario?

Your case (input 0 and input 1 having different relative rates to the output) is not covered by the sync_block/interpolator/decimator "templates" that GNU Radio has, so you have to use the general block approach.
Assuming you're familiar with gr_modtool¹, you can use it to add things like interpolator (relative rate >1), decimators (<1) and sync (=1) blocks:
-t BLOCK_TYPE, --block-type=BLOCK_TYPE
One of sink, source, sync, decimator, interpolator,
general, tagged_stream, hier, noblock.
But also note the general type. Using that, you can implement a block that doesn't have any restrictions on the relation between in- and output. That means that
you will have to manually consume() items from the inputs, because the number of items you took from the input can no longer be derived by the number of output items, and
you will have to implement a forecast method to tell the GNU Radio scheduler how much items you'll need for a given output.
gr_modtool will give you a stub where you'll only have to add the right code!
¹ if you're not: It's introduced in the GNU Radio Guided Tutorials, part 3 or so, somethig that I think will be a quick and fun read to you.

Considering that the question was asked 4 years ago and that there has been many changes in GNU Radio since then, I want to add to the answer that now this is possible to do with the Patterned Interleaver block.
patterned_interleaver_image
This block works the following way: it receives inputs in the ports to the left and outputs a single interleaved pattern in the port that is to the right. So let's imagine a block with 2 inputs, V1 and V2:
V1 = [0,1,0,0,1,1]
V2 = [1,1,1,0,1,0]
Suppose we want the output to be the first 2 bits of V1 followed by the first 2 bits of V2 followed by the next 2 bits of V1 and then the next 2 bits of V2 and so on...that is, we want the output to be
Vo = [0,1,1,1,0,0,1,0,1,1,1,0].
In order to accomplish this we go to the properties of the Patterned Interleaver block which looks like this:
patterned_interleaver_properties
The Pattern field allows us to control the order in which the bits in the input ports will be interleaved. By default they are in [0,0,1,1] meaning that the block will take 2 bits from input port 0 followed by 2 bits from input port 1. The corresponding output will be
[0,1,1,1,0,0,1,0,1,1,1,0],
that is, the first 2 bits of V1 followed by the first 2 bits of V2 and then the next 2 bits of V1, etc.
Let's see another example. In case the Pattern field is set to [0,0,1,1,1,0] the output will be 2 bits from input port 0 followed by 3 bits from input port 1 and then 1 bit from input port 0. In the output we will obtain [0,1,1,1,1,0,0,1,0,1,0,0].
Lastly, the Pattern field is also used to determine the number of input ports. If the Pattern field is [0,0,1,2] we will see that another input port is added to the block.
patterned_interleaver_3_inputs

Related

DEFLATE: how to handle "no distance codes" case?

I mostly get RFC 1951, however I'm not too clear on how to manage the case where (when using dynamic Huffman tables) no distance codes are needed or present. For example, let's take the input:
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ01234567890987654321ZYXWVUTSR
where no backreference is possible since there are no repetitions of length >= 3.
According to RFC 1951, at least one distance code must be present regardless, otherwise it wouldn't be possible to encode HDIST - 1. I understand, according to the reference, that such code should be of zero bits to signal "no distance codes".
One distance code of zero bits means that there are no distance codes
used at all (the data is all literals).
In infgen symbols, I'd expect to see a dist 0 0.
Analyzing what gzip does with infgen, however, I see that TWO distance codes are emitted (each 1 bit long) for the above input (even though none is actually used then):
! infgen 2.4 output
!
gzip
!
last
dynamic
litlen 48 6
litlen 49 6
litlen 50 6
...cut...
litlen 121 6
litlen 122 6
litlen 256 6
dist 0 1
dist 1 1
literal 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ01234567890987654321Z
literal 'YXWVUTSR
end
!
crc
length
So what's the correct behavior in these cases?
If there are no matches in the deflate block, there will be no lengths from the length/literal code, and so the decoder will never look for a distance code. In that case, what would make the most sense is to provide no information at all about a distance code.
However the format does not permit that, since the 5-bit HDIST value in the header is interpreted as 1 to 32 distance codes, for which lengths must be provided for in the header. You must provide at least one distance code length in the header, even though it will never be used.
There are several valid things you can do in that case. RFC 1951 notes you can provide a single distance code (HDIST == 0, meaning one length), with length zero, which would be just one zero in the list of lengths.
It is also permitted to provide a single code of length one, or you could do as zlib is doing, which is to provide two codes of length one. You can actually put any valid distance code description you like there, and it will still be accepted.
As to why zlib's deflate is choosing to define two codes there, I can only guess that Jean-loup was being conservative, writing something he knew that even an over-simplified inflator would have to accept. Both gzip and zopfli do the same thing. They all do the same thing when there is only one distance code used. They could emit just the single one-bit distance code, per the RFC, but they emit two single-bit distance codes, one of which is never used.
Really the right thing to do would be to write a single zero length as noted in the RFC, which would take the fewest number of bits in the header. I will consider updating zlib to do that, to eke out a few more bits of compression.

Hardware implementation of Data Encryption Standard (S-boxes /permutations)

I am trying to implement the DES circuit and according to a lot of papers, the S-boxes usually is implemented using a SRL or LUT, i'm not familiar with SRL, so i thought i use 8 LUT, each one has 6 adress lines and 4 data lines ( the 1st 2 adress lines represent the 1st and last bits of the bloc, and the 4 other adress lines represent the rest which will define the column)
For example if we take S-box 1 (shown in this figure)
Here is the table that comes with it
That's just for one box, it seems to me wrong, to do all of the boxes we have to write 512 lines. My first question is: is a LUT a hardware component? if so, i am using it correctly? and, is there a more appropriate implementation or representation?
My second question is: what does it mean hardware wiring? I found out that all the permutation function could be implemented using wire crossing, i didn't understand it. Should i make a wire for every bit?

GNU Radio block with variable number of intputs/outputs

I am currently trying to do the signal processing of multiple channels in parallel using a custom source block. Up to now I created an OOT-source block which streams data for only one channel into one output perfectly fine.
Now I am searching for a way to expand this module so that it can support a higher number of channels ( = outputs of the source block; up to 64) in parallel. Because the protocol used to pull the samples pulls them all at one it is not possible to use more instances of the same source block.
Things I have found so far:
A pdf which seems to explain exactly what to do already but it seems that it is outdated and that this functionality is no longer supported under GNU Radio.
The description of a feature which should be implemented in the future.
Is there are known solution or workaround for this problem?
Look at the add block: It has configurable many inputs!
Now, the trick here is threefold:
define an io_signature as input and output that allows for adjustable numbers. If you use gr_modtool add to create a new block, your io_signatures will be filled with <+MIN_IN+>, <+MAX_IN+>, <+MIN_OUT+> and <+MAX_OUT+>. Adjust these to reflect your actual minimum and maximum in- and output port numbers. If you want to have 1 to infinity inputs, use 1, -1.
in your (general_)work method, check for the number of inputs by doing something like ninputs = input_items.size(), and for the number of outputs by doing noutputs = output_items.size().
(optionally, if you want to use GRC) modify the <sink>/<source> definitions in your block GRC XML:
<sink>
<name>in</name>
<type>complex</type>
<nports>$num_inputs</nports>
</sink>
num_inputs could be a block parameter; compare the add_XX block source code.

Method to get non-base units?

Is there a method of using the exponent properties of LabView units for carrying custom units? For example I would find it convenient to use milli-Amperes instead of Amperes in my data wires.
My first attempt at doing so looks like this, but trying to get the value out at the end gives me nothing.
I would find it convenient to use milli-Amperes instead of Amperes in my data wires
For a wire, it's not possible, and it's not a problem, here's why:
I'm afraid what you want make little sense, since you're milli-Amperes instead of Amperes refers to representing your data, while a wire is just raw data. Adding the milli- to a floating point changes the exponent, not the mantissa, so there's no loss or gain of precision in the value that your number carries.
Now if we talk about an indicator which is technically a display of the wire value, you change the unit from "A" to "mA" to have the display you want.
Finally, in your attempt with "set numeric info", the -3 factor added next to Amperes means the unit is A^-3, not mA.
You can use data that don't use units, however than you will loose your automatic check of the units.
For display properties you can tweak the display format to show different outputs:
This format string is constructed as following:
% numeric
^ engineering notation, exponents in multiples of three
# no trailing zeros
_6 six significat digits
e scientific notation (1e1 for instance)
The prefix is the best way to affect the presentation of the value on a specific front panel.
When passing data from VI to VI, the prefix is not passed, and the data uses the base ( Amps, Volts, etc...)
In my example below, the unitless value 3 is assigned units of Amp in mA.vi. The front panel indicator is set to show units of mA.
In Watts.vi I multiply the Amps OUT of mA.vi by a constant of 9V and the result is wired to the indicator x*y.
x*y has units of W and I changed the prefix to k for presentation.
The NI forums have several threads that report certain functions (square and square root specifically) can cause unit errors or broken wires. Most folks don't even know the units capability exists, and most that do have tried and abandoned them. :)

Trying to understand nbits value from stratum protocol

I'm looking at the stratum protocol and I'm having a problem with the nbits value of the mining.notify method. I have trouble calculating it, I assume it's the currency difficulty.
I pull a notify from a dogecoin pool and it returned 1b3cc366 and at the time the difficulty was 1078.52975077.
I'm assuming here that 1b3cc366 should give me 1078.52975077 when converted. But I can't seem to do the conversion right.
I've looked here, here and also tried the .NET function BitConverter.Int64BitsToDouble.
Can someone help me understand what the nbits value signify?
You are right, nbits is current network difficulty.
Difficulty encoding is throughly described here.
Hexadecimal representation like 0x1b3cc366 consists of two parts:
0x1b -- number of bytes in a target
0x3cc366 -- target prefix
This means that valid hash should be less than 0x3cc366000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 (it is exactly 0x1b = 27 bytes long).
Floating point representation of difficulty shows how much current target is harder than the one used in the genesis block.
Satoshi decided to use 0x1d00ffff as a difficulty for the genesis block, so the target was
0x00ffff0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000.
And 1078.52975077 is how much current target is greater than the initial one:
$ echo 'ibase=16;FFFF0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 / 3CC366000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000' | bc -l
1078.52975077482646448605