Contents • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Using Java for Serial Communication [ ] Introduction [ ] Because of Java's platform-independence, serial interfacing is difficult. Serial interfacing requires a standardized API with platform-specific implementations, which is difficult for Java. Unfortunately, Sun didn't pay much attention to serial communication in Java. Sun has defined a serial communication API, called, but an implementation of the API was not part of the Java standard edition.

Sun provided a reference implementation for a few, but not all Java platforms. Particularly, at the end of 2005 Sun silently withdrew JavaComm support for Windows. Third party implementations for some of the omitted platforms are available. JavaComm hasn't seen much in the way of maintenance activities, only the bare minimum maintenance is performed by Sun, except that Sun apparently responded to pressure from buyers of their own Sun Ray thin clients and adapted JavaComm to this platform while dropping Windows support. This situation, and the fact that Sun originally did not provide a JavaComm implementation for Linux (starting in 2006, they now do) led to the development of the free-software library. RxTx is available for a number of platforms, not only Linux. It can be used in conjunction with JavaComm ( RxTx providing the hardware-specific drivers), or it can be used stand-alone.

Cards, embedded systems, and point-of-sale devices, financial services devices, fax, modems, display terminals, and robotic equipment. The Java Communications API (also known as javax.comm) provides applications access to RS-232 hardware (serial ports) and limited access to IEEE-1284 (parallel ports), SPP mode. I am experiencing some strange behavior when communicating with an Arduino board from a Java program using the javax.comm library. I am running the Java program on a VIA Pico-ITX with Ubuntu 9.04 Server 32-bit Alternate Installation. The version of javax.comm is 'comm3.0_u1_linux'. If I boot the.

When used as a JavaComm driver the bridging between the JavaComm API and RxTx is done by JCL ( JavaComm for Linux). JCL is part of the RxTx distribution. Eprompter Downloads Free more. Sun's negligence of JavaComm and JavaComm's particular programming model gained JavaComm the reputation of being unusable.

RxTx - if not used as a JavaComm driver - provides a richer interface, but one which is not standardized. RxTx supports more platforms than the existing JavaComm implementations. Recently, RxTx has been adopted to provide the same interface as JavaComm, only that the package names don't match Sun's package names.

So, which of the libraries should one use in an application? If maximum portability (for some value of 'maximum') is desired, then JavaComm is a good choice.

If there is no JavaComm implementation for a particular platform available, but an RxTx implementation is, then RxTx could be used as a driver on that platform for JavaComm. So, by using JavaComm one can support all platforms which are either directly supported by Sun's reference implementation or by RxTx with JCL. This way the application doesn't need to be changed, and can work against just one interface, the standardized JavaComm interface. This module discusses both JavaComm and RxTx. It mainly focuses on demonstrating concepts, not ready-to-run code.

Those who want to blindly copy code are referred to the sample code that comes with the packages. Those who want to know what they are doing might find some useful information in this module. JSSC (Java Simple Serial Connector) should also be considered There is also another library called jSerialComm that includes all its platform specific files in its jar, this makes it truly portable as there is no installation necessary. Getting started [ ] • Learn the basics of. • Have the documentation of the device you want to communicate with (e.g. The modem) ready. • Set up all hardware and a test environment • Use, for example, a terminal program to manually communicate with the device.