README.md

SerialPort

A light-weight C++ library for cross-platform serial communication on Linux and Windows.

Build instructions

The build instructions are the same for both Windows (tested on Windows 10) and Linux (tested on Ubuntu 20.04):

• Get the latet release of CMake for your platform
• Create a folder build inside the cloned repository folder:

mkdir build

• Navigate to build:

cd build

• Configure the project and generate a build system:

cmake ..

• Then perform the actual build (in Release mode):

cmake --build . --config Release

And once more from the top for easy copy-and-paste:

git clone https://github.com/nullpunktTUD/SerialPort/
cd SerialPort
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
cmake --build . --config Release

Getting started

To use the SerialPort in your own project, add the folder SerialPort/include to your include directories and link against SerialPort/lib/Release/SerialPort.lib on Windows or SerialPort/lib/Release/libSerialPort.a on Linux.

Here is a minimal example to get you started:

#include <chrono>
#include <iostream>
#include <thread>

#include <serial_port/serial_port.h>

using namespace serial_port;

int main() 
{
  // Instantiate two ports (Make sure these are available and connected to each other on your system)
  // Otherwise exceptions will be thrown!
  SerialPort out_port("COM1", 9600);  // Use appropriate name on Linux, e.g., /dev/ttyS0
  SerialPort in_port("COM2", 9600);  // Use appropriate name on Linux, e.g., /dev/ttyS1
  
  // Open both ports
  out_port.Open();
  in_port.Open();
  
  // Write out a string (mind that you are responsible to terminate with \n yourself!)
  const auto out_string = std::string("Hello World!\r\n");  
  out_port.WriteString(out_string);

  // Allow some time for data transfer to take place
  std::this_thread::sleep_for(std::chrono::milliseconds(20));
  
  // Read a string from the listening port (currently always expects \n as the string terminator)
  const auto in_string = in_port.ReadString();
  
  // Print out string
  std::cout << in_string << std::endl;
    
  return 0;
} // Ports are closed automatically in their destructor

For more details, check out the documentation.