First Use

So you have never used SECoP, and want to interact with a node? For exploring the protocol, all you need is a program that can talk tcp or serial, depending on your device. Connect to your device and send the following message to start communication (‘>’ and ‘<’ show who is sending the message):

> *IDN?

The SECNode replies with the version number of the protocol that it wants to speak:

< ISSE,SECoP,V2019-09-16,v1.0

Great! So we know, that we are talking to something that knows SECoP, but we do not know yet, what we are talking to. That is, what we will find out with next message:

> describe

We will format the answer a bit, since it is longer than the usual messages we will encounter:

< describing . {
    "equipment_id": "introduction_node",
    "description": "a basic example",
    "modules": {
      "outside": {
        "interface_classes": ["Readable"],
        "implementation": "example.sensors.Temperature",
        "accessibles": {
          "description": {
            "value": {
              "datainfo": {
                "type": "double",
                "unit": "C"
              },
              "description": "temperature outside",
              "readonly": true
            }
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }

We asked the SECNode to describe itself to us, and now we can interact with specific parts of the SECNode. The easiest command to access a module is the read command, where we have to say, which value we want to read:

> read outside:value
< reply outside:value [23.2, {"t": 1212121.121221}]