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Those two snippets look OK, they send bytes, not text. There may be text in the bytes, but technically it is binary data as far as the PC can tell. Two suggestions:
1.
doesn't the target expect some "end-of-command" indication, maybe a CR or a LF or both? If so, add it to the byte array in the exact same way you do other ASCII characters.
2.
Timing issues:
2a. you did not understand well I'm afraid; if the target accepts 8N1, the source is allowed to use 8N2 which slows down the communication by 10% but may be enough for the target to keep up.
2b. if you open the port, adjust it settings, and send something all in a row, without any delays, most targets I have encountered will just not hear the message, they are still getting ready to listen (opening the port is likely to set one of the control lines, which in turn interrupts the target, signalling something might be going to happen, etc). Hence, open the port in advance, wait 10 msec (NOT inside a button_click handler!), then communicate.
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Luc,
You're the man. Thanks for sticking with me, I really appreciate it ... the CR was what was missing at the end of the byte array.
When I send that, I'm able to send data and have it recognize it. Thanks again for the lesson! I guess the keypress event sends that behind the scenes? I did not know that the chip looked for that before now.
byte[] buff = new byte[7];
buff[0] = (byte)'p';
buff[1] = (byte)'i';
buff[2] = (byte)'n';
buff[3] = (byte)'2';
buff[4] = (byte)'=';
buff[5] = (byte)'3';
buff[6] = (byte)13;
serialPort1.Write(buff, 0, buff.Length);
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You're welcome. I'm glad you got it working.
turbosupramk3 wrote: I guess the keypress event sends
Not at all. Something else must have been going on.
turbosupramk3 wrote: I did not know that the chip looked for that
That should have been obvious: after receiving some digits, how would it know the number is complete? either there is a strict syntax (that many digits), or a time-out (not a nice idea), or there must be a terminator. Everything being ASCII, a CR terminator would be the obvious choice IMO.
turbosupramk3 wrote: I really appreciate it
Then start upvoting whatever message(s) actually helped you.
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I have LED's that can turn on and off 10 times a second (resolution) inside of a program, and a clock speed on the uC of 80mhz, so I did not anticipate having any timing issues with this. It is sometimes skipping over commands to turn the LED's on and off. The uC can flash the LED's a 1000+ times a second, so the bottle neck has to be in the serial portion of it.
To expand on your 2., the uC only functions at 8N1. I have added the 10MS wait per your advice, do I need to have that in between serial command sends as well?
[EDIT]
It appears to be the code on the uC is what is slowing it down, this code below is not even processing correctly. I have terminal data coming back also, maybe that is effecting it?
serialPortWrite("pin16=1");
Thread.Sleep(100);
serialPortWrite("pin16=0");
serialPortWrite("pin17=1");
Thread.Sleep(100);
serialPortWrite("pin17=0");
serialPortWrite("pin18=1");
Thread.Sleep(100);
serialPortWrite("pin18=0");
serialPortWrite("pin19=1");
Thread.Sleep(100);
serialPortWrite("pin19=0");
serialPortWrite("pin20=1");
Thread.Sleep(100);
serialPortWrite("pin20=0");
serialPortWrite("pin21=1");
Thread.Sleep(100);
serialPortWrite("pin21=0");
serialPortWrite("pin22=1");
Thread.Sleep(100);
serialPortWrite("pin22=0");
serialPortWrite("pin23=1");
Thread.Sleep(100);
serialPortWrite("pin23=0");
serialPortWrite("pin22=1");
Thread.Sleep(100);
serialPortWrite("pin22=0");
serialPortWrite("pin21=1");
Thread.Sleep(100);
serialPortWrite("pin21=0");
serialPortWrite("pin20=1");
Thread.Sleep(100);
serialPortWrite("pin20=0");
serialPortWrite("pin19=1");
Thread.Sleep(100);
serialPortWrite("pin19=0");
serialPortWrite("pin18=1");
Thread.Sleep(100);
serialPortWrite("pin18=0");
serialPortWrite("pin17=1");
Thread.Sleep(100);
serialPortWrite("pin17=0");
serialPortWrite("pin16=1");
Thread.Sleep(100);
serialPortWrite("pin16=0");
serialPortWrite("pin17=1");
Thread.Sleep(100);
serialPortWrite("pin17=0");
serialPortWrite("pin18=1");
Thread.Sleep(100);
serialPortWrite("pin18=0");
serialPortWrite("pin19=1");
Thread.Sleep(100);
serialPortWrite("pin19=0");
serialPortWrite("pin20=1");
Thread.Sleep(100);
serialPortWrite("pin20=0");
serialPortWrite("pin21=1");
Thread.Sleep(100);
serialPortWrite("pin21=0");
serialPortWrite("pin22=1");
Thread.Sleep(100);
serialPortWrite("pin22=0");
serialPortWrite("pin23=1");
Thread.Sleep(100);
serialPortWrite("pin23=0");
serialPortWrite("pin22=1");
Thread.Sleep(100);
serialPortWrite("pin22=0");
serialPortWrite("pin21=1");
Thread.Sleep(100);
serialPortWrite("pin21=0");
serialPortWrite("pin20=1");
Thread.Sleep(100);
serialPortWrite("pin20=0");
serialPortWrite("pin19=1");
Thread.Sleep(100);
serialPortWrite("pin19=0");
serialPortWrite("pin18=1");
Thread.Sleep(100);
serialPortWrite("pin18=0");
serialPortWrite("pin17=1");
Thread.Sleep(100);
serialPortWrite("pin17=0");
serialPortWrite("pin16=1");
modified 2-Nov-11 17:22pm.
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turbosupramk3 wrote: so the bottle neck has to be in the serial portion of it.
Nope. A lot of things could cause less than real-time behavior. The Windows serial port is heavily buffered, your outgoing data is copied several times, and collected, regrouped, eventually sent out; so it could cause delays. But then a number of Windows timers have their limitations (I wrote an article on the subject). And overall Windows isn't a real-time operating system, it is intended to either serve a single human being typing and clicking away, or (as a server) a number of non-time-critical requests from a lot of loosely connected clients. In either case, reaction times in the order of 10 to 100 msec are considered "good enough".
If you want a LED to flash, have your microcontroller do that, and have your PC just send one command to start it.
turbosupramk3 wrote: the uC only functions at 8N1
That means it uses 8 data bits, no parity, and will SEND using a single stop bit. It will receive and understand anything that has 1 or more stop bits.
turbosupramk3 wrote: I have added the 10MS wait per your advice
That was suggested between opening the port and sending the first message; I trust you keep the port open, so there normally would be no need once the port has been open for such period. Unless the target is "serially deaf" while executing your previous command, then your PC would require a fixed period in between serial commands. Either the target's doc, or some experiments, should point that out. Obviously, opening and closing the port all the time could be detrimental to the comm performance.
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Ok, I stripped out the feedback data that I use to troubleshoot, and I put the 10mS wait when I first open the port and it is working with a resolution of 100ms, which I think will server my purposes.
Thank you very much Luc!
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Nice.
Regards,
Rob Philpott.
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Perhaps to add to what Luc is saying... perhaps you want to use System.Text.Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes ( string ) ?
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Hi,
If you mean the following, this is not working either.
string asciiString = "abc";
byte[] buff = System.Text.Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(asciiString);
serialPort1.Write(buff, 0, buff.Length);
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turbosupramk3 wrote: If I send "pin1=2" via the simpleserial object, it is received
and the microchip code reacts. When I try and send it through the below method,
the data is not received by the microchip and it does not react.
Like Bob, I can't see any functional difference between the simpleserial code and your version.
Here are a few random ideas which may help.
1) Are you sending the correct message?
When you use simpleserial and type in the characters individually, how does the device know when it has a complete message? Does it respond as soon as the 2 of pin1=2 is typed in or do you have enter something more?
{EDIT} I see from your response to Luc that you must have been pressing the enter key.
2) Is the loop sending the message too quickly?
Test the effect of a delay (~300ms) between each character to simulate the transmission rate of a typed message.
foreach (char chr in lineToWrite)
{
char[] buff = new char[1];
buff[0] = chr;
serialPort1.Write(buff, 0, 1);
System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(300);
}
3) Is the port configured correctly?
In the simple serial class insert some code to log the values of all properties after the port has been opened.
e.g.
port.Open();
Debug.Print("Baud {0}", port.BaudRate);
and then make sure that your code uses the same settings.
Alan.
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Hi Alan,
Thanks for the reply. I had to add the CR and verify some things. The port is configured correctly. The loop was sending data too quickly when I had the pipe clogged up with debug info, once I cleared that, 100mS resolution was good, and I believe that is sufficient, I may try 50mS later on.
It was responding to a single character push, without having to hit the enter key, with the event key press trigger. I'm not quite sure why I had to add a CR, maybe you have a theory?
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In a C#.net 2010 application that I am suppose to maintain (since I am new to working with this language), I find code that looks like the following:
[^]try
{ //do something}
catch (ex){} [^]
In the visual studio ide, I see a a curly green under the ex.
I also do not see any using statement that I would think applies.
Thus can you tell me if this kind of code really catches any errors? if so can you explain it to me?
I put this kind of code around some of my new code and everything falls into the catch block.
Thus can you tell me what a "good" try catch block should look like aand what namespace should be included in the
using statement?
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0.
your example is pretty bad, e.g. it is missing the type of the exception you're catching.
1.
the green curly indicates the variable "ex" isn't used anywhere. If you aren't going to use it, leave out the variable's name, so write:
...
catch(FileNotFoundException) {
log("Saving the customer data failed because the necessary file wasn't there");
}
2.
a good try-catch construct would have one or more regular statements in the try-block, and at least one in the catch-block.
3.
an empty catch block most often is very bad (it "swallows" the error information without leaving a trace). One should only catch things one can deal with, and it is always wise to log the exception.
4.
There is no connection between try-catch and using.
5.
And of course the C# reference material has told you you can have 0 or more catch-blocks and 0 or 1 finally-block; all with good examples in the doc.
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Luc Pattyn wrote: And of course the C# reference material has told you
But of course... 
When I was a coder, we worked on algorithms. Today, we memorize APIs for countless libraries — those libraries have the algorithms - Eric Allman
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When I was talking about the using statement, I was wanting to know what namespace should be used.
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"Exception" is part of the System namespace. (ie. System.Exception)
I wasn't, now I am, then I won't be anymore.
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Assuming you have a typical set of usings (Visual always gives you using.System to start with), there is nothing you have to add.
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dcof wrote: catch (ex){}
You have to specify wich type of exception may handle by this try-catch. List of Exception
catch (Exception ex){}
dcof wrote: curly green under the ex.
Curly green indicate that variable is declared but not used inside catch block.So throw exception.
catch (Exception ex)
{
throw ex;
}
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Your advice to just throw the exception isn't the best thing you can do. You should never catch an exception and rethrow it without doing something else with the exception. The reason for this is because all you have done is recreate what would happen if you didn't have any exception handling at all.
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All you've done is get back to the same situation plus paid the cost of throwing another exception! So yeah, don't do that.
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Luc gave you a very good answer.
Here's a quick simple example, but try the MSDN site or maybe the articles here on CP for proper exception handling.
try{
}
catch(Exception ex){
}
finally{
}
tip: Do not show technical Exception messages to the user. Instead, depending on the catch, form a nice message explaining what happened and if they need to take action.
Hope this helps.
V.
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Hey,
I've been stuck with this problem quite a while now, so I figured maybe you can help me?
I have a program that is being started by creating a new instance of a class, and then call it's start method, that is starting a timer. When developing, I've been using a win forms GUI to press the button to start, and that has been working fine. Now when the program is done and works fine, I want to make it a win service. So I simply added a win service to the project. But, even though the service does exatly the same thing as the forms GUI, the program doesn't start. This is the code..
private FileWatcher fw;
public MyService()
{
InitializeComponent();
}
protected override void OnStart(string[] args)
{
fw = new FileWatcher();
fw.Start();
}
protected override void OnStop()
{
fw.Stop();
}
public FileWatcher()
{
_archiveFolder = "D:\\Archive\\";
_errorFolder = "D:\\Error\\";
_fileWatcherInputFolder = "C:\\Input\\";
_processFolder = "C:\\Process\\";
_archiveFolder = "C:\\PMI\\Archive";
_errorFolder = "C:\\PMI\\Error\\";
_fileWatcherInputFolder = "C:\\PMI\\Input";
_processFolder = "C:\\PMI\\Process";
_PMIRepository = new PMIRepository();
_ParserController = new ParserController(_archiveFolder, _errorFolder, _fileWatcherInputFolder, _processFolder);
}
public void Start()
{
try
{
if (!Directory.Exists(_archiveFolder))
Directory.CreateDirectory(_archiveFolder);
if (!Directory.Exists(_errorFolder))
Directory.CreateDirectory(_errorFolder);
_fileCheckTimerBatch = new System.Timers.Timer { AutoReset = false, Interval = 1000 };
_fileCheckTimerBatch.Elapsed += FileCheckTimer_Batch_Elapsed;
_fileCheckTimerBatch.Start();
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
}
}
public void Stop()
{
_fileCheckTimerBatch.Stop();
}
When I step into the program, I can see it reaches the Start() method and walks down to _fileCheckTimerBatch.Start(), but then it jumps out. The debugger just walks back to the Service class and stops the program. What have I done wrong? I even started a whole new service project and copied all the filewatcher DLL files to the new project, but still the same problem.
Thanks
Sunker
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This is what I would expect to happen. The timer is started on a separate thread so there is nothing to hang around for after starting, therefore the process is complete.
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Did you install it? And start it via the manager? I suspect you didn't.
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Hello, CP! I have a question and I have yet to find the answer I need. I have created a custom ToolStrip renderer as well as a class derived from ToolStrip. I have also created a class derived from a standard Button control. Along with these, I have a "ThemeBase" class which all theme sets are derived from, I have two theme sets and I have a "ThemeManager" class. ThemeManager is a singleton class and it works perfectly fine for theming the application all at once. At runtime, that is.
However, I would like to add design-time support for dynamically changing the theme in the Forms Designer. Would this be possible without too much headache? The way it is currently set up is that the controls display in the Forms Designer with the default theme that I set. This is no issue as the themes are virtually identical aside from their color schemes. So if changing the theme at design-time is too much of a hassle then I am not worried about it.
I have looked at custom designers, deriving from ControlDesigner. However, I could not picture that as the solution I am looking for. I have seen controls which you can change the theme for individually at design-time and it takes effect. I am positive I know how that is done. I am interested in theming all controls in the designer (where applicable) at once. Maybe it is not even really possible but I wanted to ask since I could not find the answer elsewhere on my own.
Thank you!
djj55: Nice but may have a permission problem
Pete O'Hanlon: He has my permission to run it.
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