reading in data from rs232 port, require to resend as an email

You may consider to use a scripting language supporting serial port I/O and SMTP. My favorite is Tcl/Tk, it's free (even for commercial purposes) and has both:

The ActiveState distribution has "batteries included", the tcllib/smtp package:

Tcl basics on serial ports:

Tcl basics on SMTP:

Regards, Rolf

Lyn wrote, On 02.04.2008 13:16:

My vote would be for Python

Support for sending mail is included above, but the serial port module hasn't made it into the standard library yet and has to be installed separately:

If the OP has Borland C++ Builder or Delphi, he could try using the Turbo Power Asynch component

But he could also use it to build in debug, onsite testing, configuration etc.

JS

There are utilities to do that. I'm using one on another project but I've forgotten the name. I'll try to remember to post a reference Thurs Afternoon

Robert

XP

I would suggest you to VB, you can use MS COM to read serial port and do as you wish.

Cheers!!

-dK

XP

Thanks for all your replies, I will wait to see if a utility has been written for this. Lyn

If the PC could run on Linux, it would just need a few lines of bash script. Just write an email, if you need further information.

regards Guenther

Refreshed my memory. This is the utility I'm thinking of

msmtp

Nice command line interface. You do have to set up a configuration file so it knows what smtp server it should communicate with. It handles all the authentication details etc...

It is possible to use Windows interfaces but if you use Outlook (at least with the method I'm using) pops up a box when you fill in the address field and then pops up another one when you do the actual send (and this one can't be answered until after a 4sec wait). Since neither can be turned off that makes that method unsuitable for automation.

Robert

I use msmtp, and I don't see how it does what the OP wants. msmtp is just a command-line SMTP client. It's not going to read data periodically from a serial port.

You're right. I was assuming something else would have to read the serial port. It never occurred to me that that wouldn't be the case, if nothing else something has to know when to read the data and format it into something nice for whoever is receiving the mail. Of course if the data server at the other end of the serial port is nice enough it's concievable that a simple copy might work. Not likely though. Still it does reduce the size of the problem.

Robert

Assuming the data is text (or there's a command-line utility that reads the data and converts them to text), you don't really need much more than a shell-script a few lines long to do what the OP wants given a command-line mail program and something like msmtp or ssmtp (or any other MTA).

Windows XP

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=A0 =A0 Yow! ! =A0Now I understand

=A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 advanced MICROBIOLOGY and

=A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0th' new TAX REFORM laws!!- Hide quoted text -

Thank you for all your contributions. I am an embedded hardware/ software engineer and not written software for pc for a while. That's why I was looking to buy/ use an off the shelf system. I am thinking of redesigning the system to just add a gsm modem (from old nokia phone) and sent temperature text alerts to a mobile phone. Not all my users will have pcs (e.g. elderly people), and there are more cell phone users than pc users (I think?) in uk. Mrs Lyndsay Williams