Uploading text files with serial extender
Keywords: pPutBinary
Question:
I love your new serial extender for Winbatch, but I don't understand why you haven't
made it easier to squirt a plain text file out the serial port without using an
error-correcting protocol (It would be nice, though not essential, if I could construct a
progress indicator, too). I work for a newspaper where our reporters send dozens of text
files into our main frame every day from their laptops. I'd love to write a stand-alone
application in Winbatch to automate the process, but I just can't find a way. Can you
help?
Answer:
Well...mostly it's not done beause it
does not work. But for a pure squirt,
ignoring line noise and a host of errorprone
overrun conditions....
- Establish a comlink and get a port handle.
- Squirt a file.
fn="C:\filname.of.file.to.squirt"
fs=Filesize(fn)
binbuf=BinaryAlloc(fs)
BinaryRead(binbuf,fn)
binaddr=IntControl(42,binbuf,0,0,0)
pPutBinary(port,binaddr,fs)
BinaryFree(binbuf)
That will just dump the file out the serial port. I recommend some kind of error
correction protocol on both sizes. Either XMODEM or ZMODEM or something. (Which
does have a progress indicator) or at least checksum the binary buffer before sending it.
Article ID: W12580
Filename: Uploading Text Files using Serial Extender.txt
File Created: 1999:04:15:16:48:12
Last Updated: 1999:04:15:16:48:12