Possible?

[justinh]

I have some hardware (money counting system) connected to my pc (using a serial port). Right now I can send terminal commands to it and everything works fine. Is it possible to send terminal commands via PHP?

 

[genericnumber1]

many ways...

 

backtick operators: `command`

system()

exec()

shell_exec()

etc.

 

See: http://us3.php.net/manual/en/ref.exec.php

[justinh]

Okay lets say I have my hardware, I'm connected to it via terminal. If I press the clear command ("Capital C + enter") it clears the money counter. Now how would I begin sending date via PHP to a serial port? A quick hello world example would be lovely, but if you can't, do you have any good tutorial links?

[.josh]

You would need to setup an interface to send commands to be used with those various functions genericnumber provided.  You can make a form with a text field or text area or dropdown or whatever, and use the posted info in one of those functions.  Or you could make links that send command string via GET method.  Or if you're looking for a more real-time solution like if you were to be working from the command prompt, you could look into doing it with ajax.

[justinh]

I understand the logic of it all, So basically, If I can type C into Tera Term (terminal freeware) and it clears the display on the hardware, I can easily use a button labeled clear, and some AJAX to do this?

[.josh]

well, you wouldn't technically need ajax.  Ajax would just allow you to click the button and send a request to the script without refreshing the whole page.  You can do it with a regular html form or link and just have the whole page refresh.

[justinh]

Okay well I read over the exec info on php.net

 

this is what I came up with

 

 
<?php 
for($i = 1; $i <= 2; ++$i){

if($i == 1){ 
$command="cd C:\Program Files (x86)\\teraterm\\";
$output=shell_exec($command." 2>&1");  //system call
print "<pre>$output</pre>\n";          //show output 
print "<br />" . $command;
} else {

$command="TTERMPRO /I";
$output=shell_exec($command." 2>&1");  //system call
print "<pre>$output</pre>\n";          //show output 
print "<br />" . $command;

}

} 

?>

 

I move to the terminal freeware program directory, but once im in the directory I try to execute a command, TTERMPRO /I

 

this is the returns I get

 

 

 

 


cd C:\Program Files (x86)\teraterm\
'TTERMPRO' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.


TTERMPRO /I 

 

http://ttssh2.sourceforge.jp/manual/en/commandline/teraterm.html is a list of commands for tera term

[corbin]

cd C:\Program Files (x86)\teraterm\

 

 

should be

 

cd "C:\Program Files (x86)\teraterm\"

 

 

so:

 

$command='cd "C:\\Program Files (x86)\\teraterm\\"';

 

 

I don't think PHP uses shell_exec in a traditional shell sense by the way.  What I mean is, if you change the current working directory, I don't know if you will still be in that directory on the next shell_exec call.  Guess you can try it though ;p.

[justinh]

Okay thank you,

 

<?php
chdir("C:\\Program Files (x86)\\teraterm\\");


$cmd = "TTERMPRO /I";
exec($cmd);
?>

 

seems to work.