Enhancement Request: Allow for easier opening of COMx (x>=10) on Windows

[swabianeagle]

I'm using rubyserial 0.2.1.

Currently, when using rubyserial on Windows I get the following results when opening a serial port:

irb(main):001:0> require 'rubyserial'
=> true
irb(main):002:0> ser1=Serial.new("COM8")
=> #<Serial:0x000000024ecc88 @fd=#<FFI::Pointer address=0x00000000000098>, @open=true>
irb(main):003:0> ser2=Serial.new("COM17")
RubySerial::Exception: ERROR_FILE_NOT_FOUND
        from C:/Ruby21-x64/lib/ruby/gems/2.1.0/gems/rubyserial-0.2.1/lib/rubyserial/windows.rb:10:in `initialize'
        from (irb):3:in `new'
        from (irb):3
        from C:/Ruby21-x64/bin/irb:11:in `<main>'
irb(main):004:0> ser2=Serial.new("\\\\.\\COM17")
=> #<Serial:0x0000000329a448 @fd=#<FFI::Pointer address=0x0000000000009c>, @open=true>

Arguably it is my mistake that opening COM17 fails the first time, but it seems asymmetric to me that it works with COM8.

I added the following line to windows.rb and this seems to work: added this to Serial#initialize (windows.rb, line 5) address = "\\\\.\\#{address}" # needed for com-ports >= COM10

Now the behavior is symmetric:

irb(main):001:0> require 'rubyserial'
=> true
irb(main):002:0> ser1=Serial.new( "COM8" )
=> #<Serial:0x00000002dd7640 @fd=#<FFI::Pointer address=0x00000000000098>, @open=true>
irb(main):003:0> ser2=Serial.new( "COM17" )
=> #<Serial:0x0000000341a2f0 @fd=#<FFI::Pointer address=0x0000000000009c>, @open=true>

Adding the prefix multiple times doesn't seem to matter (I've tried it), so it should be safe to blindly add the prefix by default as I did.

Maybe this could be added in the next release.

[zankich]

@swabianeagle good catch, I would accept a pull request from you with this change, if you'd be so kind!

[swabianeagle]

Hi Adrian,

sorry for my ignorance as I don't know git very well. What exactly do I have to do to create a pull request.

Armin

On January 20, 2015 at 2:50 PM Adrian Zankich notifications@github.com wrote:

@swabianeagle good catch, I would accept a pull request from you with this change, if you'd be so kind!

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Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub: https://github.com/hybridgroup/rubyserial/issues/22#issuecomment-70720136

[zankich]

First you'll want to fork this repo, https://help.github.com/articles/fork-a-repo/, and make the appropriate changes in your fork of rubyserial. Once you have your changes in place, you will see a pull request button, which is a green square with two arrows pointing towards each other. Hit that button and you're good to go! Here's github's help docs too about pull requests https://help.github.com/articles/using-pull-requests/#initiating-the-pull-request

[f3rno]

Can you please tag a new release with this fix? It's a fairly serious problem on windows systems. Also, keeping the issue open is sure to cause some confusion, given that the issue is fixed in master (but not in the latest release).

[deadprogram]

Ulp! You are right, let me see if we can fix that today.

[deadprogram]

I just released version 0.2.3 please make sure this corrects your issue, and reopen if not. Thanks!