node-red-nodes/io/serialport/README.md

node-red-node-serialport
========================

<a href="http://nodered.org" target="_new">Node-RED</a> nodes to talk to a
hardware Serial port.

**Note** : The version 0.1.x of this package requires underlying serialport
v2.0.x

Earlier versions of node.js, as found on default Debian install on a Raspberry Pi, require an
updated version of npm. See below. Or you can install the older version of
this node - node-red-node-serialport@0.0.5

Install
-------

Run the following command in your Node-RED user directory (typically `~/.node-red`):

        npm i node-red-node-serialport

For versions on node.js prior to 4.x (ie v0.10.x and v0.12.x) please install using

        sudo npm i -g npm@2.x
        npm i node-red-node-serialport

You may also have to install or upgrade GCC to be version 4.8 or better.
Alternatively you can simply install the older version of this node.

        npm install node-red-node-serialport@0.0.5

During install there may be multiple messages about optional compilation.
These may look like failures... as they report as failure to compile errors -
but often are warnings and the node will continue to install and, assuming nothing else
failed, you should be able to use it. Occasionally some platforms *will* require
you to install the full set of tools in order to compile the underlying package.


Usage
-----

Provides two nodes - one to receive messages, and one to send.

### Input

Reads data from a local serial port.

Clicking on the search icon will attempt to autodetect serial ports attached to
the device, however you many need to manually specify it. COM1, /dev/ttyUSB0, etc

It can either

 - wait for a "split" character (default \n). Also accepts hex notation (0x0a).
 - wait for a timeout in milliseconds for the first character received
 - wait to fill a fixed sized buffer

It then outputs `msg.payload` as either a UTF8 ascii string or a binary Buffer object.

If no split character is specified, or a timeout or buffer size of 0, then a stream
of single characters is sent - again either as ascii chars or size 1 binary buffers.

### Output

Provides a connection to an outbound serial port.

Only the `msg.payload` is sent.

Optionally the new line character used to split the input can be appended to every message sent out to the serial port.