Using the Serial Port

eran_benjamin has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Shalom ( = 'hi' in hebrew),

My name is Eran Benjamin, I am a student in the technion university in Haifa, Israel.

I am trying to create a system which combine a pc and a speech recogntion device that is connected to the pc (based Win98 OS), the connection is done through the SerialPort (COM1 or COM2).

I have folowed the instruction of Bill Birthisel as presented at: http://members.aol.com/Bbirthisel/alpha.html thus I have download the Win32-SerialPort-0.19.tar.gz he present there.

THE PROBLEM is that when I try to run the tests given in the directory, The perl 'shouts' that it looks for a module:

Win32:API.

Bill refer to that in his README.txt but the link to the missing API file he gives, doesn't exist anymore.

QUESTIONS:

1. Do you have a better solution than the one Mr.Birthisel offers? If you do, please let me know.

If you don't:

2. Do the Win32 fit to deal with Windows98 OS?

3. Where can I find the missing API module?

The issue is urgent for me, please reply asap.

Thanks in advence,

Benjamin.

Updated Steve_p - fixed formatting and made link clickable

Comment on Using the Serial Port

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Re: Using the Serial Port by friedo (Prior) on Apr 19, 2005 at 10:54 UTC
Win32::API is available on The CPAN. "Win32" means all the 32-bit Windows, including Windows-95 and up. That doesn't necessarily mean the same thing will work in all places, of course. This is Windows, after all. :)	[reply]
Re^2: Using the Serial Port by eran_benjamin (Initiate) on Apr 19, 2005 at 12:25 UTC
Thanks Friedo for your quick answer. I did what you said, and download the API module. But now I get this 'shout': "Can't locate loadable object for module Win32::API in @INC". INC cntains all the links I set, which the first one point at the Win32-API-0.41 directory (which I have download from Cpan) Whem I tried to debug I have tested the Win32-API-0.41 directory it self by a simple test as suggested in the Win32:API link that you have sent me. all I wanted is to call the API, and get a process ID, thus I have copy paste the example given in the Cpan, and now I got the following 'shout': Can't locate Win32/API.pm Although I ran the test in the same directory whereas the API.pm was! But beside this 2 problems above,I am worried now, about something else: The Device I work with (the speach recognition device) can work only with Windows98/95 as it use the 8bit Dos, which is not applicable for Windows-2K/XP. Do you think I might face problem using the Win32 when communicate to that device? Please reply, thanks, Eran.	[reply]
Re^3: Using the Serial Port by Lunchy (Sexton) on Apr 19, 2005 at 14:45 UTC
If you are using ActiveState Perl, I believe you can use their PPM (Perl Package Manager) utility to install this module. At a command prompt, type 'ppm'. This will bring you to a 'ppm>' prompt. Then the command 'install win32::api' should download the proper files and install it for you. (it's been a while since I've used this and I can't test it at the moment to make sure it works). However, if you DO have problems, type 'help' and the PPM will give you a list of commands. Hope that helps!	[reply]
Re^4: Using the Serial Port by eran_benjamin (Initiate) on Apr 21, 2005 at 11:22 UTC
Re^3: Using the Serial Port by rev_1318 (Chaplain) on Apr 19, 2005 at 14:36 UTC
Did you only download the module, or did you actually install it? Read the documentation provided with the module. The least you probably have to do is: `perl Makefile.PL make make test make install` [download] To get things running! Paul	[reply] [d/l]
Re^4: Using the Serial Port by eran_benjamin (Initiate) on Apr 21, 2005 at 11:19 UTC