'Super Com Z" Com Support Routines "Port parameter

[zbasicandy]

These "beta" routines should work for general serial communications using 1 to 4 serial I/O ports. Due to the complex nature of these routines they are subject to change on the minute!

[stevech]

(I've never used BasicX)

Are the unusal codings for PutL and Put floats etc. as they are because of BasicX compatibility?

ZBasic would not need all this arcane code.

[dkinzer]

I would suggest the alternate implementations below. Something similar could be used for outputting Single values unless the required format can't be produced by CStr() or Fmt().

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Public Sub PutStr(ByVal port as Byte, ByRef Tx as STRING)
	' Outputs a STRING type to serial port n.

	Dim Length as Integer
	Dim I as Integer

	Length = Len(Tx)
	For I = 1 To Length
		Call PutByte(port, Asc(Tx, I))
	Next I
End Sub

Public Sub PutL(ByVal port as Byte, ByVal Operand as Long)
	Dim s as BoundedString(11)
	s = CStr(Operand)
	Call PutStr(port, s)
End Sub

Public Sub PutUL(ByVal port as Byte, ByVal Operand as UnsignedLong)
	Dim s as BoundedString(10)
	s = CStr(Operand)
	Call PutStr(port, s)
End Sub

Except for the use of the second parameter on the Asc() function and the syntax for defining the bounded string, the same coding would work for BasicX. An alternate method for fetching string characters in BasicX is:

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		Call PutByte(port, RamPeek(MemAddress(Tx) + I + 1))

[stevech]

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Public Sub PutL(ByVal port as Byte, ByVal Operand as Long)
   Dim s as BoundedString(11)
   s = CStr(Operand)
   Call PutStr(port, s)
End Sub 

would be useful as a sub if it saved code space, rather than just coding in-line in the application:

call PutStr(port, CStr(number)) // dynamic string allocation in ZBasic

which with the VM, is probably not significantly different, esp. considering that it uses less call/return/parameter passing stack.

[dkinzer]

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Call PutStr(port, CStr(number))

You are correct that this consumes less stack space than allocating the bounded string. I should have made that reduction, too.