Inside Macintosh: Networking With Open Transport / Part 1 - Open Transport Essentials

Chapter 19 - Serial Endpoint Providers

This chapter describes how you can use serial endpoint providers to transfer data between devices connected to a serial port. Open Transport supports asynchronous serial data communication between client applications through these ports. This chapter provides information about Open Transport functions and options that are specific to serial endpoint providers. You need this information only if you have a specific need to use serial communication.

To get the most out of this chapter, you should already be familiar with the concepts and application interfaces described in the chapters "Introduction to Open Transport", "Providers", "Endpoints", "Option Management", and "Getting Started With Open Transport" in this book. For information about the Macintosh serial port hardware, including circuit diagrams and signal descriptions, see Guide to the Macintosh Family Hardware, second edition. For information about locating all the serial ports available through Open Transport, see "Ports".

This chapter begins with a brief summary of key concepts in serial data communication, then describes how you can use serial endpoint providers to

• configure a serial port

• send and receive data through a serial port

• interpret serial communication status information

The section "Using General Open Transport Functions With Serial Endpoints" describes serial-specific information relating to functions described in the "Endpoints" chapter of this book and the section "Using Options to Change Serial Communications Settings" describes the options you can specify when you configure a serial endpoint provider. The Serial Reference Chapter describes those constants, options, and OTIoctl function commands available to users of Open Transport serial endpoint providers.

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Chapter Contents

About Serial Endpoint Providers

About Serial Communication

DTR and CTS Signals

Asynchronous and Synchronous Communication

Handshaking Methods for Flow Control

Using Serial Endpoints

Opening and Closing Serial Endpoints

Sending and Receiving Data

Using Serial-Specific Commands

Using Options to Change Serial Communications Settings

Controlling Serial Port I/O Handshaking

Obtaining Status Information About the Serial Port

Using General Open Transport Functions With Serial Endpoints

Obtaining Endpoint Data With Serial Endpoints

OTOpenEndpoint, OTAsyncOpenEndpoint, and OTGetEndpointInfo

Using Endpoint Functions With Serial Endpoints

OTBind

OTConnect

OTListen

OTAccept

OTSnd

OTRcv

OTSndDisconnect

OTRcvDisconnect