Port Operations in the .NET Framework with Visual Basic

Port Operations in the .NET Framewo...

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Microsoft Visual Studio 2008/.NET Framework 3.5

Other versions are also available for the following:

Visual Basic Application Development

Port Operations in the .NET Framework with Visual Basic

You can access your computer's serial ports through the .NET Framework classes in the System.IO.Ports namespace. The most important class, SerialPort, provides a framework for synchronous and event-driven I/O, access to pin and break states, and access to serial driver properties. It can be wrapped in a Stream object, accessible through the BaseStream property. Wrapping SerialPort in a Stream object allows the serial port to be accessed by classes that use streams. The namespace includes enumerations that simplify the control of serial ports.

The simplest way to create a SerialPort object is through the My.Computer.Ports.OpenSerialPort method.

Note:
You cannot use .NET Framework classes to directly access other types of ports, such as parallel ports, USB ports, and so on. To access your computer's network, see Classes Used in .NET Framework Network Operations.

Enumerations

This table lists and describes the main enumerations used for accessing a serial port:

Enumeration	Description
Handshake	Specifies the control protocol used in establishing a serial port communication for a SerialPort object.
Parity	Specifies the parity bit for a SerialPort object.
SerialData	Specifies the type of character that was received on the serial port of the SerialPort object.
SerialError	Specifies errors that occur on the SerialPort object
SerialPinChange	Specifies the type of change that occurred on the SerialPort object.
StopBits	Specifies the number of stop bits used on the SerialPort object.

Tasks

This table lists and describes the main tasks for accessing a serial port:

To	See
Show available serial ports	How to: Show Available Serial Ports in Visual Basic
Dial a modem attached to the serial port of a computer	How to: Dial Modems Attached to Serial Ports in Visual Basic
Send a string to a computer's serial port	How to: Send Strings to Serial Ports in Visual Basic
Receive a string from a computer's serial port	How to: Receive Strings From Serial Ports in Visual Basic

Reference

My.Computer.Ports Object

Other Resources

Accessing the Computer's Ports

Going Further with Visual Basic