Designing an application that communicates to hardware through serialport

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I am making an attempt to design a Windows application in c# that communicates through a serial port. The project will have a connection select screen, a main form with a menu bar and multiple dialogs connected to each menu item. The flow of the application would look like this:

The connection select dialog will be shown on the MainForm_Load event and capture the serial port name.

When a menu items is selected, the associated command will be sent through the serial port and the dialog will show the response data.

I am having trouble with the basic c# concepts coming from c++.

How can I create just one serial class that can share data between all the dialogs?
How can I access the serial read response from my dialog and display that data in a text field or a more meaningful way?

When I draw this up, it appears simple, but I do not know how to access data from the serial port to display in each dialog.

Posted 15-Aug-12 10:24am

dsandru1

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[no name] 15-Aug-12 16:54pm

I think that what you are groping for here (from your comments) is create a class to handle your serial communication and then create some delegate functions that your dialogs can subscribe to, to get information and notifications.

dsandru1 15-Aug-12 16:56pm

Do you have more information on this I can look into? It sounds like what I am after.

[no name] 15-Aug-12 17:02pm

Go through this http://www.codeproject.com/search.aspx?q=delegates&sbo=kw and start reading. Start simple and work your way up.

Kenneth Haugland 15-Aug-12 17:06pm

Yes, that is precisely what I meant :) Thank you Wes. It seems to be an easier way of doing this without delagates though...

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Kenneth Haugland · Accepted Answer · 2012-08-15T10:34:00

Solution 1

The documentation from Microsoft should help you along:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.io.ports.serialport.aspx[^]

Here is a site with complete code:
http://www.dreamincode.net/forums/topic/35775-serial-port-communication-in-c%23/[^]

Posted 15-Aug-12 10:34am

Kenneth Haugland

Updated 15-Aug-12 11:43am

v3

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dsandru1 15-Aug-12 16:36pm

I have read through this, but it doesn't help me with my application because it is for the console not a Windows Form. I am trying to create a class that the other Forms can access, and then pull data from that class to post on the calling Form.

Kenneth Haugland 15-Aug-12 16:42pm

It dosent matter if its a consol or Windows application, the same code for the serial port should still work. You should perhaps choose a setting dialog as the startup window, and call the main form when the settings are ok.

What is the trouble in creating a serialport class anyway?

dsandru1 15-Aug-12 16:46pm

I guess the trouble isn't creating the serial class, it is finding a way to access the data in the class through multiple forms. For instance in one dialog I might have serialPort.Send(0x10), but I would have had created a new instance of serialPort without the settings selected during start-up. Also when I go to retrive the data, it is always null. *In my dialog code* textbox1.Text = serialPort.message;

Kenneth Haugland 15-Aug-12 16:48pm

Think you'll have to add handlers in the Serial class if thats going to work

dsandru1 15-Aug-12 16:50pm

This is where I start getting confused. I am used to being able to pass pointers to objects around, but I don't know where to begin with handlers.

Kenneth Haugland 15-Aug-12 16:53pm

Take a look here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/6yyk8z93%28v=vs.90%29.aspx

You basically would have to have a handler around the read and write sub/function to be abe to reach them from several forms.

Kenneth Haugland 15-Aug-12 16:58pm

Meaning you'll have to raise an event when the serial port is finished reading the port, and that event can be picked up in another form.

dsandru1 15-Aug-12 16:57pm

I'll try to take a look at this.

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 15-Aug-12 17:44pm

And then please accept the answer formally (green button) -- it is correct.
--SA

Clifford Nelson 15-Aug-12 17:09pm

My 5

Kenneth Haugland 15-Aug-12 17:16pm

Thanks :)

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 15-Aug-12 17:44pm

Correct, a 5.
--SA

Kenneth Haugland 15-Aug-12 17:45pm

Thanks Sergey :)