How do I read a string through the serial terminal in Visual Basic 2008?

Microcontrolled · 2010-04-25 02:30

I have a program in VB 2008 that will read the serial terminal and when it gets a string it will search for a web page using the string as the URL. It will then return the webpage. I have successfully sent strings in VB in the past, but I am now having trouble receiving one. Can I have some help on this?

Thanks,
Micro

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Franklin · 2010-04-25 16:13

What code are you using?

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mctrivia · 2010-04-25 17:20

Is this your work around to not having a prop Nic? I can lend you one

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Microcontrolled · 2010-04-25 18:29

@mctrivia: I thought that since this would cut the cost about $20-$30, it is worth it. I have it returning part of the HTML page, but there is some error and I think that it is returning the wrong HTML page. There must be some error with the receive string on the VB side of things. I am having this transmit wirelessly. mctrivia, check your inbox. I'll send you the other app I made for this.
@others: I'll post my VB code.

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Dr_Acula · 2010-04-28 12:38

That doesn't seem to be the complete vb.net code. But in any case, I have lots of bits of vb.net code. At the beginning, use this sort of thing:

Imports System.IO
Imports Strings = Microsoft.VisualBasic ' so can use things like left( and right( for strings
Public Class Form1
    Public Declare Sub Sleep Lib "kernel32" (ByVal dwMilliseconds As Integer) ' for sleep statements
    Dim WithEvents SerialPort As New IO.Ports.SerialPort ' serial port declare
    Dim OutPacket(0 To 2000) As Byte ' used for serial output bug with serial.write strings like chr(255) won't go out
    Dim InPacket(0 To 2000) As Byte '  for input bytes
    Private Sub Form1_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
        SerialPort.PortName = "COM1"
        SerialPort.BaudRate = "9600" ' 9600
        SerialPort.Parity = IO.Ports.Parity.None ' no parity
        SerialPort.DataBits = 8 ' 8 bits
        SerialPort.StopBits = IO.Ports.StopBits.One ' one stop bit
    End Sub

There are several methods. I tend to set a timer going then periodically check if any bytes are available. Put them in an array and then turn them into strings later. Then you have to remember to disable the timer while running that code. This is an incomplete code fragment that sits in a Do..Loop

                If SerialPort.BytesToRead = 0 Then Exit Do ' no more bytes
                BytesToRead = SerialPort.BytesToRead
                If BytesToRead > 2000 Then BytesToRead = 2000
                SerialPort.Read(InPacket, 0, BytesToRead) ' read in a packet

You can also set interrupts to run when bytes come in. The above assumes that once you have read in n bytes you process them before reading in the next group.

Or am I completely off the mark? I'm not sure what you mean by "through the serial terminal"

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How do I read a string through the serial terminal in Visual Basic 2008?

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