C# Serial Port Interview Question and Ans

 

What is the meaning of Serial port Programming in c# ?

 Use this class to control a serial port file resource. This class provides synchronous and event-driven I/O, access to pin and break states, and access to serial driver properties. Additionally, the functionality of this class can be wrapped in an internal Stream object, accessible through the BaseStream property, and passed to classes that wrap or use streams.

Types of  SerialPort  encodings ?
ASCIIEncoding, UTF8Encoding, UnicodeEncoding, UTF32Encoding, and any encoding defined in mscorlib.dll where the code page is less than 50000 or the code page is 54936. You can use alternate encodings, but you must use the ReadByte or Write method and perform the encoding yourself.
You use the GetPortNames method to retrieve the valid ports for the current computer.
If a SerialPort object becomes blocked during a read operation, do not abort the thread. Instead, either close the base stream or dispose of the SerialPort object.

 

The following code example demonstrates the use of the SerialPort class to allow two users to chat from two separate computers connected by a null modem cable. In this example, the users are prompted for the port settings and a username before chatting. This code example is part of a larger code example provided for the SerialPort class.  
C# Serial Port Initialise: This constructor uses default property values when none are specified. For example, the DataBits property defaults to 8, the Parity property defaults to the None enumeration value, the StopBits property defaults to 1, and a default port name of COM1. These must be change according to the user needs, for example the Com port number or baud rate.

What is the meaning of Serial port Transmit ?
C# Serial Port Transmit: Serial Port transmittion will send data serially out of the pc to another peripheral. This can be seen in the code,

What is the meaning of Serial port Receive?
C# Serial Port Receive: Serial Port reception will receive data serially in frm an outside peripheral. This can be seen in the code,

  Example : 

using System;
using System.IO.Ports;
using System.Threading;

public class PortChat
{
    static bool _continue;
    static SerialPort _serialPort;

    public static void Main()
    {
        string name;
        string message;
        StringComparer stringComparer = StringComparer.OrdinalIgnoreCase;
        Thread readThread = new Thread(Read);

        // Create a new SerialPort object with default settings.
        _serialPort = new SerialPort();

        // Allow the user to set the appropriate properties.
        _serialPort.PortName = SetPortName(_serialPort.PortName);
        _serialPort.BaudRate = SetPortBaudRate(_serialPort.BaudRate);
        _serialPort.Parity = SetPortParity(_serialPort.Parity);
        _serialPort.DataBits = SetPortDataBits(_serialPort.DataBits);
        _serialPort.StopBits = SetPortStopBits(_serialPort.StopBits);
        _serialPort.Handshake = SetPortHandshake(_serialPort.Handshake);

        // Set the read/write timeouts
        _serialPort.ReadTimeout = 500;
        _serialPort.WriteTimeout = 500;

        _serialPort.Open();
        _continue = true;
        readThread.Start();

        Console.Write("Name: ");
        name = Console.ReadLine();

        Console.WriteLine("Type QUIT to exit");

        while (_continue)
        {
            message = Console.ReadLine();

            if (stringComparer.Equals("quit", message))
            {
                _continue = false;
            }
            else
            {
                _serialPort.WriteLine(
                    String.Format("<{0}>: {1}", name, message) );
            }
        }

        readThread.Join();
        _serialPort.Close();
    }

    public static void Read()
    {
        while (_continue)
        {
            try
            {
                string message = _serialPort.ReadLine();
                Console.WriteLine(message);
            }
            catch (TimeoutException) { }
        }
    }

    public static string SetPortName(string defaultPortName)
    {
        string portName;

        Console.WriteLine("Available Ports:");
        foreach (string s in SerialPort.GetPortNames())
        {
            Console.WriteLine("   {0}", s);
        }

        Console.Write("COM port({0}): ", defaultPortName);
        portName = Console.ReadLine();

        if (portName == "")
        {
            portName = defaultPortName;
        }
        return portName;
    }

    public static int SetPortBaudRate(int defaultPortBaudRate)
    {
        string baudRate;

        Console.Write("Baud Rate({0}): ", defaultPortBaudRate);
        baudRate = Console.ReadLine();

        if (baudRate == "")
        {
            baudRate = defaultPortBaudRate.ToString();
        }

        return int.Parse(baudRate);
    }

    public static Parity SetPortParity(Parity defaultPortParity)
    {
        string parity;

        Console.WriteLine("Available Parity options:");
        foreach (string s in Enum.GetNames(typeof(Parity)))
        {
            Console.WriteLine("   {0}", s);
        }

        Console.Write("Parity({0}):", defaultPortParity.ToString());
        parity = Console.ReadLine();

        if (parity == "")
        {
            parity = defaultPortParity.ToString();
        }

        return (Parity)Enum.Parse(typeof(Parity), parity);
    }

    public static int SetPortDataBits(int defaultPortDataBits)
    {
        string dataBits;

        Console.Write("Data Bits({0}): ", defaultPortDataBits);
        dataBits = Console.ReadLine();

        if (dataBits == "")
        {
            dataBits = defaultPortDataBits.ToString();
        }

        return int.Parse(dataBits);
    }

    public static StopBits SetPortStopBits(StopBits defaultPortStopBits)
    {
        string stopBits;

        Console.WriteLine("Available Stop Bits options:");
        foreach (string s in Enum.GetNames(typeof(StopBits)))
        {
            Console.WriteLine("   {0}", s);
        }

        Console.Write("Stop Bits({0}):", defaultPortStopBits.ToString());
        stopBits = Console.ReadLine();

        if (stopBits == "")
        {
            stopBits = defaultPortStopBits.ToString();
        }

        return (StopBits)Enum.Parse(typeof(StopBits), stopBits);
    }

    public static Handshake SetPortHandshake(Handshake defaultPortHandshake)
    {
        string handshake;

        Console.WriteLine("Available Handshake options:");
        foreach (string s in Enum.GetNames(typeof(Handshake)))
        {
            Console.WriteLine("   {0}", s);
        }

        Console.Write("Handshake({0}):", defaultPortHandshake.ToString());
        handshake = Console.ReadLine();

        if (handshake == "")
        {
            handshake = defaultPortHandshake.ToString();
        }

        return (Handshake)Enum.Parse(typeof(Handshake), handshake);
    }
}