Reading the COM port?

[Anon]

Is it possible to read the serial COM-port at the client PC via php4?

[Anon]

Have you tried fopen()? What results did you get?

[Anon]

Surely that would attempt to access the port on the server?

To open a client side port, you would need a java applet or an ActiveX control.

[Anon]

Oooh, I missed the "at the client" part. Sorry...

[Anon]

PHP is server side so it would be impossible to open the COM port (or any port for that matter) on the client PC.

[Anon]

I want to describe my question more clearly.

What I want to do is:
At the client a html file is loaded from the server. An input field is opened and something must typed in and send to the server (with the FORM method=GET). Instead of typing in, the user takes a 2D camera and reads the same information from a barcode label. The camera is connected to the COM port.

Is it possible, to start a VisualBasic.exe(which does the reading from the COM port) on the client, when loading the html file or must I run a Java applet?

Sorry for my stupid question, but I'm not used to Java.

Thanks in advance

Andreas

[Anon]

Sorry to ask this after such a long time, but have you had success with what you wanted to do?? Can you give me a hint for the solution?

Thanks a lot!

Cyril.

[Anon]

Cyril,
no I didn't find a solution with php.
We have changed strategy. We read the COM with a LabView-program, save the data in a oracle DB and then read from it with a php script.
Andreas