Serial Port read

[oneillci]

Hi,

I was wondering if anyone knows if there is a way in Progress to read directly from a serial port. I have a barcode scanner and I need to be able to read the data being fed into the serial port.

I'm running Progress V8.3 on Sun Solaris.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance,
Ciaran.

 

[wbenhart]

Do you rally want to read directly from the serial port?

Barcode scanning is really keyboard emulation. If you have a field for part number and someone scans the barcode, the wand will emulate the keyboard and put the information in the field and do an auto return.

Unless there is some uniquely different situation, this is what happens with barcode scanners.

Hope this helps,

Wayne Benhart

 

[oneillci]

I do want to read from a serial port. We cannot have the scanner as the default input device as we need the same machine for something else.

The scanner plugs directly into the serial port but because we do not have it as the default input device we need to be able to read from the serial device e.g. /dev/tty/s0.

Because it is a serial device it cannot be read like a normal file, it needs to be read as a data stream.

I was wondering if there are any libraries that can read pure serial data streams, or has anyone attempted this before?

Thanks,
Ciaran,

 

[Samj]

Oneillci

Check the web site
http://monroecs.com/oposccos.htm
for the latest Common Control Object information.

If your scanner manufacturer follows the OPOS standard you'll find an ActiveX there that will allow you to access it's methods, properties and functions.

Good luck

Sam

 

[jongpau]

Hi Ciaran,

Just so you know, most barcode scanners that connect to the keyboard port of your computer also allow you to connect the keyboard allowing you to use the keyboard as well as the scanner at the same time !

 

[oneillci]

I'm afraid I have to read from the serial port because the scanner only supports a serial connection. We then have a serial to tcp/ip converter that we use because we do not have any serial lines going into our server. So the server is receiving serial data over tcp/ip.

Also we are using Unix so ActiveX and MFC isn't really an option! I just had to be difficult!

Does anybody else know how to read serial data directly from a device?

Thanks,
Ciaran.

 

[jongpau]

Hi,

I am not sure if this is an option, but when you use version 9 you may be able to use the built-in socket support to wait for (and load) data on a TCP port (see SERVER-SOCKET in the External Program Interfaces handbook). May be worth a try

HTH