PHP is a widely-used general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for Web development and can be embedded into HTML. And much more ...

On this page you will find a some scripts or tools I have written quick'n'dirty for use with PHP. They are used in real-world environment and are considered very useful for a long period. This may not necessarily be the case for everyone else than me, but they may at least be a starting point for you and leave room for your own modifications.

SerConf

A replacements for the Windows 'mode' command.

The main problem using PHP for serial communication on a Windows PC is the fact that there's no way to set up the port timeouts correctly. A PHP script that opens a COM port for communication with a serial device such as a modem will always wait for a timeout that is set to 60000ms by 'mode' when expecting data coming in. Setting the stream to non-blocking doesn't help.

SerConf has the ability to set up the port timeouts. It's in fact a setup tool for the SetCommState and SetCommTimeouts Windows functions. It does no console setup and offers no lpt redirection as 'mode' does.

does not fully support all features of 'mode'
but supports port timeouts, for read and write separately
if timeouts are specified it makes use of the WriteTotalTimeoutMultiplier but never of the ReadIntervalTimeout
simpler handshake setup

usage example:

serconf com3 baud=38400 stop=1 parity=none handshake=both rtimeout=10 wtimeout=10

help (called without parameter):

SERCONF version 0.3
Usage: serconf  [opts/commands]

Where opts/commands are:
  Baud=<value>          baud rate (110 to 256000, default=keep current)
  Parity=<type>         'none' (default), 'even', 'odd', 'mark' or 'space'
  Data=<value>          7 or 8 (default) bits
  Stop=<value>          1 (default) or 2 stop bits
  Handshake=<type>      'none' (default), 'dtr', 'rtc' or 'cts', 'both'
  WTimeout=<value>      milliseconds (default=1000, 0=no timeout)
  RTimeout=<value>      milliseconds (default=1000, 0=don't wait at all)

Download the SerConf tool