EnhanceSerial Communications by adding a ComRdStatus function

[matthew.b.steger@l-3com.com]

There is no way in the current Serial Com functions to determine where a BREAK or FRAMING (or other) error occurred in the input steam (see Reference#7355407).  Add a new "ComRdStatus" to log the UART Status for each and every character individually.

Your "driver" code would be:

     When CHR received in UART

          Get STATUS from UART and put in ComRdStatus buffer     // New array of Status bytes for each character

          Get CHR from UART and put in ComRD buffer                   // Same as it is now

          Increment count returned by GetInQLen                            // Same as it is now

Then user S/W can be:

     While (GetInQLen(port) > 0)    // characers and their status's in queue

          ComRd (port, &chr, 1)                // read character

          ComRdStatus (port, &status, 1)     // read character's status

          if (status != 0)    // check if any status bits set

               if (status & BREAK_BIT)     // Check if this character is a BREAK

                    // Process BREAK condition at the point it happened

               if (status & FRAMING_BIT) // Check if this character had a Framing error

                    // Process Framing Error at the point it happened

               if (status & OVERRUN_BIT) // Check if this character had a Framing error

                    // Process Framing Error at the point it happened
               // ETC to handle all errors at the point in the stream they happened

          else // no status bits set so this Char is "normal"

               j// Process "normal" chr

This would let the user know EXACTLY where the BREAK (or Framing or Overrun or ...) condition occured in the queue.

Right now, if you have 15 characters in the queue and GetComStat says there is one or more "status" bits you have *NO IDEA* whcih character(S) had the status issue.

     E.G. if there is 15 chars in the queue and 5 are 0x00 and BREAK_BIT is set in GetComStat you have no idea which 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 of the 0x00 bytes where the BREAK and user's need to know this!

[LuisG]

Original submission: http://forums.ni.com/t5/LabWindows-CVI-Idea-Exchange/EnhanceSerial-Communications-by-adding-a-ComRdS...