Serial port emulator usage examples

Contents

1. Why you may need extra serial ports in your system
2. Most common examples of utilization of virtual COM ports when testing/debugging:
   • ♦ various applications that use null-modem cable;
   • ♦ COM port device emulators;
   • ♦ device/firmware drivers;
   • ♦ software with different address spaces;
   • ♦ application’s abilities to intercept and log data sent over network.

Various practices to enhance serial port communication with the help of Virtual Serial Port Driver by Electronic Team

Have you ever needed to emulate serial ports? As a rule, possible reasons vary from serial port data capturing/reproduction, GPS data replication to system debugging, telecommunication or/and data transmission systems. Then again, you cannot connect a remote host or device that has a serial port with a null-modem cable directly, can you? In this scenario, you need to set up a serial port connection. To do so, you can develop a program that uses Virtual Serial Port Driver for communicating with remote COM port by TCP/IP stack.

Here are the most common usage examples of virtual COM ports:

1. You want to debug or test the software that uses null-modem cable.
   For instance:
   • ♦ a terminal emulator;
   
   • ♦ your own software that utilizes serial port. In particular, if the application you developed connects to a modem and sends AT commands, you can create virtual COM port to emulate connection and send/receive commands to it. Download virtual serial port to make testing easier and forget the problems you had with clumsy and slow debugging on the real device that doesn’t even support multithreading;
   • ♦ a data sniffer program that works with COM port. If you decide to develop one someday, you can create virtual serial port pair to test or/and debug it properly.
2. You perform testing/debugging of various COM port device emulators, like GPS, fax, modems, and others.

3. You are in the process of testing or/and debugging device/firmware drivers. Thereto, you don’t necessarily need the hardware to create a driver for it.


4. You need to test and debug two software programs with different address spaces that cannot communicate with one another directly.
5. You’d like to test/debug application’s functionality as to caching, logging, proxying or translation of data transmitted over network.

With serial port emulation solution you no longer need to utilize an expansion card or a second computer for performing aforementioned tests. Use virtual port pair on your PC for quick and efficient debugging to ease and improve your current workflow.