SerialPort v1.0

Introduction

This is a command line (aka console) based tool for redirecting stdin to a serial port. This was written specially for use on Windows 95 where this behaviour is not built in.

Piping Data to the Serial Port

The default behaviour for the tool is to take lines of input on stdin and write them to a serial port defined with the --port switch. Whilst you can do this interactively it was always intended that you'd want to do this by piping the ouput through from a previous command, e.g.

> echo Hello, World! | SerialPort --port 3

The --echo Switch

By default any data coming through on stdin is silently directed to the serial port, but if you also want to echo it onto stdout you can specify the --echo switch

> echo Hello, World! | SerialPort --port 3 --echo
Hello, World!

The --test Switch

If you just need to veriy that a serial port exists on a certain port you can use the --test switch which just attempts to open the specified port. If the port was open okay it will write a success message on stdout and set errorlevel to 0. However if opening it fails then a failure message is written to stderr and errorlevel is set to a non-zero value.

> SerialPort --port 3 --test
Port opened successfully.

The --defaults Switch

To find out what the default settings are for a given serial port you can use the --defaults switch. This will write out the basic port settings.

> SerialPort --port 3 --defaults
Baud Rate: 1200
Data Bits: 7
Parity: 2
Stop Bits: 0

Note: This switch essentially gives you the same information you'd get from using mode comX: /status.

The --settings Switch

To change the COM port configuration you can use the --settings switch. The argument value is a comma-separated list of values for the baud rate, parity, data bits and stop bits. The parity can be the first letter or whole word of: none, odd, even, mark or space. The number of data bits can be between 5 and 8, and the numbr of stop bits is 1, 1.5 or 2.

> SerialPort --port 3 --settings 9600,N,8,1

Note: Some combinations of data bits and stop bits are invalid, e.g. 5 with 2 and 6/7/8 with 1.5.

License & Warranty

This application is freeware - you get what you pay for, nothing more, nothing less.

Source Code

The full source code (C++) is available from my web site listed below.

Contact Details

Using the --version switch will also display my contact details. Please check the web site for updates.

Email: gort@cix.co.uk
Web: www.chrisoldwood.com

Chris Oldwood
24th October 2017