medha
I have a POS machine and say several serial devices are connected like scanner to COM1 , card reader to COM2, printer to COM3 or any order, i am unable to detect so using circuits.uart
The output comes as follows :
Circuits.UART.enumerate
#=> %{"ttyS0" => %{}, "ttyS1" => %{}, "ttyS2" => %{}, "ttyS3" => %{}}
Any insight on how we could detect the devices? 
Thanks in advance
Where Next?
Trending in Questions
Other Trending Topics
Latest on Elixir Forum
Sponsor Spotlight
Catch errors, track performance, monitor hosts and more.
Categories:
Sub Categories:
Forums
Popular Tags
- #ecto
- #liveview
- #troubleshooting
- #learning-elixir
- #deployment
- #library
- #erlang
- #testing
- #genserver
- #mix
- #absinthe
- #remote-other
- #otp
- #plug
- #how-to-question
- #macros
- #postgres
- #elixirconf
- #channels
- #exunit
- #discussion
- #code-sync
- #podcasts
- #javascript
- #onsite
- #dialyzer
- #docker
- #authentication
- #umbrella
- #full-time-contract
- #podcasts-by-brainlid
- #ecto-query
- #blog-post
- #elixirconf-us
- #elixir-ls
- #ai
- #phoenix_html
- #iex
- #graphql
- #genstage
- #websockets
- #supervisor
- #advent-of-code
- #distillery
- #processes
- #api
- #forms
- #hex
- #security
- #metaprogramming
Our Sponsors
Build Elixir applications with speed and confidence.
Supporting innovation across the BEAM ecosystem.
We build reliable cloud platforms for business-critical systems.
Catch errors, track performance, monitor hosts and more.
Elixir, Erlang & BEAM conferences from Code Sync - join us in 2026!
Practical resources that improve the lives of professional developers.
Master modern tools, write cleaner code, and tackle real-world challenges.
Bringing learning, work and compliance together since 1987.
The team behind Membrane, Popcorn, LiveDebugger. Available for hire.
Courses that'll move you from confusion to "Aha, now I get it!"
Showing Posts 1 to 7- Show Best Posts
- Show All (oldest first)
- Show All (newest first)
NobbZ
As far as I remember
COMports do not communicate some “connected” status or similar, you need to probe them yourself. Best is probably to require fixed ports for auxiliary devices and provide default configs for that or require the user to set each device up correclty via configuration of some kind.medha
So even if we fix ports for the devices, like suppose com1 for cardreader and com2 for scanner, can’t i get the info if the device is physically connected to the com ports via checking any logs or something else??
How do i know the device connected to com1 is cardreader itself and not scanner?
OvermindDL1
You ask it. That’s the nature of the old Serial Ports. ^.^
medha
That’s the problem we have to solve, how to ask ?
NobbZ
You need to look that up in the technical documentation of the device, the chapter that describes the on-the-wire-protocol.
OvermindDL1
Precisely, it’s very specific per each device. This was one of the major reasons the Universal Serial Bus standard (USB) was so much better than the old Serial (excepting that it lost streaming, which it regained in 3.0).
NobbZ
Back in the days I had a printer with 9 pins that also had emulation for 7 an d 24 pins.
It’s protocol had no way to ask if it’s there or what it is. Everything you sent to the printer caused at least a moving head.
And the only command that did not cause printing but gave a response back was asking for the current mode.
So it was idiomatic to “ask” for the current mode and assume it’s the correct device if it answered with one of the 6 valid modes (7, 9, 24 pins in either text or graphical mode).
This was actually a command which started scanning on a hand scanner I had that time. And if you didn’t move the scanner within a timeout period, it actually responded with a valid printer mode. This timeout was about 15 seconds.