How to send CTRL-S & CTRL-X over serial port

[Blip]

Hello -

I'm trying to wite these control characters to the serial port w/o
success.

I've tried sp.Write((Keys.ControlKey & Keys.X).ToString());
sp.Write((Keys.Control & Keys.X).ToString());

char[] temp = { Convert.ToChar(Keys.Control), Convert.ToChar(Keys.X)
};
sp.Write(temp, 0, 2);

and other screwy variations.

Any suggestions how to do this?

Thanks, Tom

[Peter Duniho]

On Sat, 27 Sep 2008 11:00:54 -0700, Blip <bl**@krumpli.comwrote:

Hello -

I'm trying to wite these control characters to the serial port w/o
success.

I've tried sp.Write((Keys.ControlKey & Keys.X).ToString());
sp.Write((Keys.Control & Keys.X).ToString());

What's "sp"? Is that an instance of the SerialPort class?

The bottom line here is that you are trying to mix the user-input data
structures associated with keyboard input with the ASCII used to represent
that input.

The first non-zero byte values for ASCII are reserved for control input.
By convention, the letters are assigned in sequence, with Control-A being
1, Control-B being 2, etc. Control-S would be 19. You can probably
figure out Control-X on your own. :)

Just send the correct byte value. You aren't going to get anywhere trying
to use values from the Keys enumeration, as that's tied to the keyboard,
not ASCII.

Pete

[Alberto Poblacion]

"Blip" <bl**@krumpli.comwrote in message
news:3a********************************@4ax.com...

I'm trying to wite these control characters to the serial port w/o
success.

I've tried sp.Write((Keys.ControlKey & Keys.X).ToString());
sp.Write((Keys.Control & Keys.X).ToString());

char[] temp = { Convert.ToChar(Keys.Control), Convert.ToChar(Keys.X)
};
sp.Write(temp, 0, 2);

and other screwy variations.

Any suggestions how to do this?

You can use the numeric value of the control character: Ctrl-A is ASCII
1, Ctrl-B is 2, Ctrl-C is 3, and so on.

SerialPort sp = ...;
....
char ctrlS = (char)('S'-'A'+1);
char[] charsToWrite = new char[]{ctrlS};
sp.Write(charsToWrite, 0, 1);

[MC]

To make the same point Pete did, a little more explicitly:

Serial ports don't transmit keys. They transmit bytes, which are normally
the ASCII representations of characters.

"Keys.ControlKey & Keys.X" has to do with sensing what is going on on a PC
keyboard. But serial ports do not transmit the whole state of the keyboard.
For instance, the F keys and the arrows are entirely outside the ASCII
system.

An ASCII chart will tell you that, for instance, Ctrl-A is 1, Ctrl-B is 2,
'A' is 65, and so on.