Working off serial port

[corliss at alaskapm.org]

On Wed, 12 Jan 2000, Kevin Creason wrote:

> Hmmm.
> So a simple script of any sort (sh, et al) won't cut this mustard?

Don't give up hope, yet.  Michael's assuming that the serial interface is
nothing more than that.  From personal experience, some of those PBXs do have
support for psuedo terminal sessions, so you may be able to set up a standard
terminal link and let the OS handle the actual line control.  Just check out
the documentation on the PBX, first. . .

> What a drag. I don't know enough C to drown in. :)
> 
> I'll have to get some more statistics on the PBX card. They did tell me that
> it will store up to 1,000 entries if nothing is connected. Hmmm. So the
> streaming may not be a problem. I'll have to check and see if the buffer
> drops the oldest data. If that happens, then a Perl script could retreive
> the data, parse it, add it to a flatfile..... Is that feasible-- if it
> doesn't have to be streaming/ forked?

Sounds like it is dropping the oldest data.  Appending it to a log maintianed
on the Unix box is your best bet, then.

> Of course there is that ioctl() messiness you mentioned. Know any good CPAN
> modules that I could look at for direction? Or for that matter, I could
> spawn something else to log the data to a file. Don't have a clue how to do
> that just yet, but I'm workin' on stormin' up a brain. gimme me some
> time.... or better yet- some better ideas.

Before you lose too much hair, try my previous suggestion:  either hook up a
dumb terminal to the port, or set up a null modem serial cable to the unix
box, and try to access the port with term software.  . .

	--Arthur Corliss
	  Perl Monger/Alaska Perl Mongers
	  http://www.alaskapm.org/

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