fcntl, serial ports and serial signals on RS232.

[Max Kotasek]

On Apr 8, 11:17 am, Grant Edwards <inva... at invalid.invalid> wrote:
> On 2010-04-07, Max Kotasek <mawr... at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I'm trying to figure out how to parse the responses fromfcntl.ioctl()
> > calls that modify the serial lines in a way that asserts that the line
> > is now changed.
>
> Two comments:
>
>   1) None of the Linux serial drivers I've worked on return line states
>      except when you call TIOCMGET.
>
>   2) If the TIOCMBI[S|C] call returned a 'success' value, then the
>      line was set to what you requested.
>
> If you want to read back the state that you just wrote, you can call
> TIOCMGET, but for the "output" pins it's always going to return the
> last value that was written.
>
> > For example I may want to drop RTS explicitly, and
> > assert that the line has been dropped before returning.
>
> Call TIOCMSET.  If it doesn't return an error, then you're done.
>
> > Here is a brief snippet of code that I've been using to do that, but
> > not sure what to do with the returned response:
>
> What returned response?
>
> The only thing that is returned by TIOCMBIS/TIOCMBIC is a status value
> of 0 for success and <0 for failure. IIRC, that value is checked by
> Python'sfcntl.ioctl wrapper and it will raise an exception on
> failure.
>
> > Is someone familiar with manipulating serial signals like this in
> > python?
>
> Yes.
>
> > Am I even taking the right approach by using thefcntl.ioctl call?
>
> Yes.  When you set/clear RTS or DTR do they not go up/down?
>
> Even if you can't use pyserial, it's a good source for example code.
>
> --
> Grant Edwards               grant.b.edwards        Yow! TONY RANDALL!  Is YOUR
>                                   at               life a PATIO of FUN??
>                               gmail.com            


I appreciate the feedback.  I'm working in an environment with a lot
of changing factors, it's nice to have a piece not act unexpectedly.

Max