Visual Basic 2005 in a Nutshell, Third Edition

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Chapter 13: The ‘My’ Reference

This is the Title of the Book, eMatter Edition

Copyright © 2006 O’Reilly & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.

Description

The OpenSerialPort method opens one of the serial ports on the local computer and

returns an instance of System.IO.Ports.SerialPort for that port.

Usage at a Glance

• This method is not valid in ASP.NET applications.

• This serial port must be closed and disposed of when finished. Normally, this is

done by using the Close method on the object returned from the OpenSerialPort

method. You may also close it automatically by using the

Using keyword. The

example provided in this entry shows how to do this.

• An exception is thrown if any of the parameters passed are invalid or are not

available through the specified port.

Example

The following example opens the computer’s COM1 serial port and sends a single line

of text data. The serial port is closed implicitly through the use of the

Using keyword.

The System.IO.Ports.SerialPort.WriteLine method sends the data to the serial port.

Public Sub SendTextToCOM1(ByVal textToSend As String)

' ----- Open COM1 and send some text.

Dim comPort As System.IO.Ports.SerialPort

Using comPort = My.Computer.Ports.OpenSerialPort("COM1")

comPort.WriteLine(textToSend)

End Using

End Function

Related Framework Entries

• Microsoft.VisualBasic.Devices.Ports.OpenSerialPort Method

• System.IO.Ports.SerialPort.Open Method

See ...