PHP serial port data return from Arduino. Ask Question. Up vote 14 down vote favorite. I wonder if there is a way to accomplish reading my serial port via PHP - that works:-) In practising my Arduino skills, I developed a simple LED ON/OFF sketch. It works by entering on or off in the serial monitor. This class can be used to communicate with a serial port under Linux or Windows. It takes the path (like '/dev/ttyS0' for linux or 'COM1' for windows) of serial device and checks whether it is valid before opening a connection to it. Read serial port data using Perl is very easy compare to PHP in Windows OS. The PHP serial port reading has some complication in Windows Os. In Linux serial port reading is very simple using PHP, but on Windows it makes more difficult that is why I choose Perl. What does this mean? Serial.println() will send a string across the serial port. Are you trying to read that string with your PHP script? Or are you trying to send a string to the Arduino?
PHP Serial was written at a time where I did not know any other language thanPHP and I started to get seriously bored with its abilities.
I somehow got hold of a « Citizen C2202-PD » point-of-sale display, and I wantedto play around with it. I also managed to get the documentation of it, andcreated a convenience class to access the serial port though the Linux file.
Afterwards, I posted it to PHP Classes,and this probably is what brought it any visibility.
Example
Php Serial Port Read
State of the project
Interestingly enough, this piece of code that is widely untested has created alot if interest ever since it was created, and especially nowadays witheverybody toying around with Arduinos and Raspberry Pis. I receive about 1 emailevery month asking for help with the code or sending patches/suggestions.
I think that it is time for me to remove the dust off this project and to giveit a full visibility on modern tools, aka GitHub.
Bugs
There is lots of bugs. I know there is. I just don't know which are they.
Platform support
Linux: the initially supported platform, the one I used. Probably the lessbuggy one.
MacOS: although I never tried it on MacOS, it is similar to Linux and somepatches were submitted to me, so I guess it is OK
Windows: it seems to be working for some people, not working for someothers. Theoretically there should be a way to get it done.
Concerns
I have a few concerns regarding the behaviour of this code.
Inter-platform consistency. I seriously doubt that all operations go the sameway across all platforms.
Read operations. Reading was never needed in my project, so all the tests Idid on that matter were theoretic. I was also quite naive, so the API isprobably not optimal. What we need is to re-think reading from scratch.
Configuration done by calling functions. This is so Java. It would be muchbetter to be able to pass a configuration array once and for all. Furthermore,I suspect that the order of call matters, which is bad.
Auto-closing the device. There is an auto-close function that is registeredat PHP shutdown. This sounds quite ridiculous, something has to be done aboutthat.
Use exceptions. Currently there is an heavy use of the errors system to reporterrors (2007 baby), but this is seriously lame. They have to be replaced byactual exceptions.
Call for contribution
I have about 0 time to code or test this project. However, there is clearly aneed for it.
As in all open-source projects, I need people to fit this to their needs and tocontribute back their code.
What is needed, IMHO:
Address the concerns listed above, and find new ones.
Create a reproducible test environment for each OS, and prove that eachfeature works (basically, unit-testing).
Report of use cases, bugs, missing features, etc.
If you feel like doing any of those, do not hesitate to create an issue or apull-request, I'll gladly consider consider it :)
Licence
PHP SerialCopyright (C) 2007-2014 PHP Serial's contributors (see CONTRIBUTORS file)
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modifyit under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published bythe Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or(at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty ofMERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See theGNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License alongwith this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc.,51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA.
Active6 years, 8 months ago
I have installed xampp in fedora 13.I am trying to communicate with microcontroller through serial port using php serial class.My code is example.php
The php script gets executed but gives the following warnings .
Warning: Specified serial port is not valid in /opt/lampp/htdocs/xampp/php_serial.class.php on line 147Warning: Unable to set the baud rate : the device is either not set or opened in /opt/lampp/htdocs/xampp/php_serial.class.php on line 241Warning: Unable to set parity : the device is either not set or opened in /opt/lampp/htdocs/xampp/php_serial.class.php on line 295
... I have used the command : chmod 0777 /dev/ttyUSB0 to give permissions . I have also tried to add the apache user 'prudhvi' to the dialout group by using command : $ usermod -a -G dialout prudhvi
But it doesnt work . When I send a command directly from the terminal using the command : echo 1 > /dev/ttyUSB0 it works and '1' is transmitted to the serial port . But using php I get the above warnings .
I have used the '$whoami' to check name of user and added that user 'prudhvi' to the dialout group . It still doesnt work . Please help me guys.
prudhvi09
prudhvi09prudhvi09
4 Answers
I did this once with Debian to control an Arduino board with a PHP script and initially ran into the same problem.
In Debian, you need to add the Apache user to the dialout group in order to allow it to make serial connection requests. I would assume the same is true for Fedora.
In Debian the command is:
However I believe Fedora names the Apache user as apache instead. I don't have a Fedora machine to test on, but I would assume the command you need to run is:
Could you post the lines near / related to '/opt/lampp/htdocs/xampp/php_serial.class.php on line 147'?
I suspect that you are trying to set the device incorrectly (as Marc indicated). Either that or the port is already in use from other testing you are conducting at the same time. I'm not sure if the script you are running provides errors specific to ports you are trying to attach to already being in use.
PilipoPilipo
First test a hello world type php script to testyour basic installation.
Then verify the web server / php engine is running as a user which is in a group allowed to access the applicable /dev/ttyWHATEVER device file corresponding to the serial port. It would be surprising if that were true by default - you'll probably have to add it to the 'dialout' or similar group.
Credit goes to Marc B's comment for causing me to look this up, and he's dead on: http://www.phpclasses.org/browse/file/17926.html
I believe that calling $serial->deviceSet('/dev/ttyUSB0'); will fix it, but you may have to modify the source of php_serial.class.php to work on /dev/ttyUSB instead of /dev/ttyS.
zebediah49zebediah49
Php Serial Port Communication
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