SerialPort 101 for a beginner

Hello,
I have spent a lot of time trying to use the serial port command in the toolbox but i was unsucessful. I looked at the samples posted online but i always get errrors.
Can anyone explains what are the steps needed to have a sucessful communication (read and write) from and to a serialport.If you can post the code it would be great...Please help

Thank you

Visual Studio Express Editions44

take a look at this:

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/30swa673.aspx

does this help

Basically you create an instance of the serialport class, set its properties, then open the connection and "write()" data to it.

To read the data recieved, you need to implement the DataRecieved event:

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ed55271k.aspx

Thanks but i have looked all that up. Can i drag the serialport1 icon from the toolbox and then set it's property in the property window without writing that in code .
I still need to open the port and read/write from it. I am looking here for shortcuts.
Thanks

there are no shortcuts, things have been simplified! :)

you have to write the code, you maybe able to set properties from the Windows Designer however to read/write to the ports you have to write code otherwise how is it going to open/close/read/write to ports This is what a software developer does ;-)

**can you help me figure this out.I am just following what you said.
From the beginning. I openned a form in Vb Express and then I dragged the serialPort icon from the toolbox to the form and i defined all it's properties like baud rate, the com port and all that.

next i created a button icon on the form and them i double clicked it so that i would get into the form1.vb[design] ( the code view window)
The following code are generated:**

Public Class Form1

Private Sub Button1_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click

End Sub
End Class

**at this point i need to open the port to read and write**
** The tutorial That you sent me mentions that i need to declare the **data received event handler.
** i am not sure about the code below,where should i included it in my **form1 code and how should i read/write from to the port

Public Event DataReceived As SerialDataReceivedEventHandler

Dim instance As SerialPort
Dim handler As SerialDataReceivedEventHandler

AddHandler instance.DataReceived, handle


Thank you much

what you have done so far is correct

now to implement the dataRecieved event handler you can do this programmatically or via the Form designer so:

click on the SerialPort object/control you have added on the form, then look at the properties Window. Click on the lightning icon, which indicates Events and double click on "DataRecieved".

This will not create the DataRecieved event in your application for the serial port

To write to the serial port, just enter:

theSerialPort.Write("hi")

or whatever, the serial port class has the Write() method which you can use to send data

to read from the serial port, the DataRecieved event will be fired when there is data being recieved automatically.

does this help

Hello,
Here is what i have at this point. I am just trying to read from the serial port . Am i missing anything all i get is a blank messagebox.

Public Class Form1
Dim StoreReceived As String

Private Sub SerialPort1_DataReceived(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.IO.Ports.SerialDataReceivedEventArgs) Handles SerialPort1.DataReceived

StoreReceived = SerialPort1.ReadExisting

End Sub

Private Sub Button1_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click

MessageBox.Show(StoreReceived)

End Sub

End Class

you are getting a blank message box because the variable "StoreRecieved" has nothing there.

StoreReceived should store whatever string value captured from the StoreReceived = SerialPort1.ReadExisting.
Also do i need to open/close the connection or it's done when i use the readExisting command.
Please explain
Thanks

yes you do need to open and close the connection when you want to access the serial port

there may not be any data being recieved hence why you will get a blank message box or even the fact that you have not opened a connection and data will not be recieved

Ok can you help me get this thing working by just filling in the missing code if there is.Here is my updated code with the open serialport

Public Class Form1
Dim StoreReceived As String

Private Sub SerialPort1_DataReceived(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.IO.Ports.SerialDataReceivedEventArgs) Handles SerialPort1.DataReceived

SerialPort1.Open()
StoreReceived = SerialPort1.ReadChar

End Sub

Private Sub Button1_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click

MessageBox.Show(StoreReceived)

End Sub

End Class

thats incorrect.

place a button on the form. Name it "open connection"

double click this button

type:

SerialPort1.Open()

on the form, place another button, name this "close connection"

double click this button

type:

SerialPort1.Close()

in your dataRecieved event handler, type:

MessageBox.Show(StoreRecieved)

Yes! it did work. Thank you for being patient with me. At this point i am getting a string of numbers from the serial port, i am going to store all of them in an array. But the problem is that i don't know how many characters i will be receiving in that case how can i creat an array with unknown size
Second when i open the serial port. How can i check if i am still receiving data
Here is what i have so far..Thank you again.

Public Class Form1
Dim StoreReceived(5) As String
Dim i As Integer

Private Sub btn_OpenPort_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles btn_OpenPort.Click

SerialPort1.Open()
If SerialPort1.IsOpen Then
MessageBox.Show("Serial Port Is Open")
End If

End Sub

Private Sub btn_ShowReceivedData_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles btn_ShowReceivedData.Click
For i = 0 To 5

StoreReceived(i) = SerialPort1.ReadByte

TextBox1.Text = StoreReceived(i)

Next

End Sub

Private Sub btn_ClosePort_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles btn_ClosePort.Click

SerialPort1.Close()

End Sub

End Class

Well you can use an arraylist and just "add" the data read, so globally you would have:

Dim theDataItemsRecieved as new ArrayList()

then in your DataRecieved event, just "add" the data recieved:

Me.theDataItemsRecieved.Add(SerialPort1.ReadExisting())

you dont need to "check" if you are recieving data, the DataRecieved event will automatically get fired/executed when there is data to be read from the port.

So from what i understand is that you created an instance of class arraylist() and you called it
the dataItemsReceived .
3 questions:

Now when you say Me.theDataItemsRecieved.Add(SerialPort1.ReadExisting()) you are essentially storing whatever is read from the serial port into the dataItemsReceived object

Also don't you need a loop to for the Me.theDataItemsRecieved.Add(SerialPort1.ReadExisting()) to store all the serial port stream

and last question how can you display the content of the theDataItemsRecieved array i got an error when i used the for loop to do that since theDataItemsRecieved is an object and it's missing the dot operator