Serial Communication

[F.S.]

This is the first time I have ever tried Serial Communication in Java and I ran into a problem. The idea is that all available COM ports are added in the ComboBox.

I have added the comm.jar folder in the libraries. The problem is that nothing is added in the ComboBox. When I add "System.out.println(""+portList);". This is what I get "javax.comm.CommPortEnumerator@81572f".

What am I doing wrong?

package sercomsolar;
/* @author F.S */

import java.io.*;
import javax.comm.*;
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import javax.swing.*;
import java.util.*;

public class PortSelect extends javax.swing.JFrame {

    protected HashMap map = new HashMap();
    protected String selectPort;
    protected CommPortIdentifier selectedCOMPort;
           
    public PortSelect() {        
        initComponents();
    }

    @SuppressWarnings("unchecked")
    //...

    private void OK_Button_SerialActionPerformed(java.awt.event.ActionEvent evt) {
        Enumeration portList=CommPortIdentifier.getPortIdentifiers();
        System.out.println(":" + portList);
        while(portList.hasMoreElements()){
            CommPortIdentifier cpi= (CommPortIdentifier)portList.nextElement();
            map.put(cpi.getName(), cpi);            
            ComboBox_Serial.addItem(cpi.getName());            
        }        
    }
   
    
    public static void main(String args[]) {        
        //...
    }
    // Variables declaration - do not modify
    private javax.swing.JComboBox ComboBox_Serial;
    private javax.swing.JLabel Label_Serial;
    private javax.swing.JButton OK_Button_Serial;
    // End of variables declaration
}

[Tolls]

You need to print out each element of the enumeration, as that class doesn't have its own toString() (which is what println calls for non-Strings), resulting in it using the toString() of Object.

[F.S.]

You need to print out each element of the enumeration, as that class doesn't have its own toString() (which is what println calls for non-Strings), resulting in it using the toString() of Object.

OK, but the real problem is that nothing is added in the ComboBox using this part of the code:

private void OK_Button_SerialActionPerformed(java.awt.event.ActionEvent evt) {
        Enumeration portList=CommPortIdentifier.getPortIdentifiers();
        while(portList.hasMoreElements()){
            CommPortIdentifier cpi= (CommPortIdentifier)portList.nextElement();
            map.put(cpi.getName(), cpi);            
            ComboBox_Serial.addItem(cpi.getName());            
        }        
    }

[Fubarable]

Time to do some debugging. If you add System.out.println(...) statements to that method, do the elements get extracted and do their names make sense? If you change that method to simply add Strings from an array into the combo box, does it work?

[F.S.]

Time to do some debugging. If you add System.out.println(...) statements to that method, do the elements get extracted and do their names make sense? If you change that method to simply add Strings from an array into the combo box, does it work?

I've tried System.out.println(...) and it doesn't work. Nothing gets extracted.

[JosAH]

Most likely it's an incorrect installation of that comm package. It surprises me that it still can be downloaded (unless it's for a Linux/Unix box) because it was discontinued for MS Windows boxes.

kind regards,

Jos

[F.S.]

Ok then,

Can anyone suggest me a better library then?

[JosAH]

Google for RXTX, it's a clone of the javacomm package (identical API).

kind regards,

Jos

[F.S.]

Google for RXTX, it's a clone of the javacomm package (identical API).

kind regards,

Jos

Just to let you know: I got my program working using this library.
Thx very much

[JosAH]

Just to let you know: I got my program working using this library.
Thx very much

Good to read you succeeded. Those RS/232 ports are quite a problem because Microsoft keeps on changing their driver APIs, that Sun javaxcomm package was released without any JSR and RS/232 is not as obsolete as they want to make us believe (usb otoh is a problem too with Java ;-)

kind regards,

Jos