Serial Port Complete - Latest Microcontroller projects

Using .NET’s SerialPort Class

An alternate way to close a port is with a Using block. On exiting the Using

block, the SerialPort object named in the Using statement is closed automati-

cally and its resources are disposed of:

 Using myComPort As New SerialPort
myComPort.PortName = "COM6"
myComPort.BaudRate = 115200
myComPort.Open()
myComPort.WriteLine("hello")
End Using

 using (SerialPort myComPort = new SerialPort())
{
myComPort.PortName = "COM6";
myComPort.BaudRate = 115200;
myComPort.Open();
myComPort.WriteLine("hello");
}
Closing a port can take up to a few seconds (or longer if waiting for the port to
finish transmitting), so applications and users should delay a bit between clos-
ing a port and re-opening the same port.

! 

The .NET Framework supports many methods for reading and writing to

COM ports. An application that sends a text command and waits for a response

will likely use a different method than an application that is sending a large file

of object code.

The SerialPort class provides methods for reading and writing to ports. Applica-

tions can also use a SerialPort object’s BaseStream property to obtain Bina-

ryReader, BinaryWriter, StreamReader, and StreamWriter objects and use their

methods to access a port. Table 9-1 and Table 9-2 summarize methods for read-

ing and writing to SerialPort objects.

A basic data type for COM-port data is the byte array. An application can trans-

fer any kind of data in byte arrays. The COM-port software makes no assump-

tions about the meaning of the data or how the receiving computer will use the

data. An application can encode data before placing it in a byte array and writ-

ing the array to the port. The receiving computer can decode the received data

as needed.