C# – How to scan for COM ports in C#

cserial-port

Does C# provide an effective means of scanning the available COM ports? I would like to have a dropdown list in my application wherein the user can select one of the detected COM ports. Creating and populating the dropdown list is not a problem. I just need to know how to scan for the available COM ports using C#.

Best Answer

System.IO.Ports is the namespace you want.

SerialPort.GetPortNames will list all serial COM ports.

Unfortunately, parallel ports are not supported directly from C#, as they're very infrequently used except in legacy situations. That said, you can list them by querying the following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\HARDWARE\DEVICEMAP\PARALLEL PORTS

See the Microsoft.Win32 namespace for details.

Related Solutions

C# – How to cast int to enum

From an int:

YourEnum foo = (YourEnum)yourInt;

From a string:

YourEnum foo = (YourEnum) Enum.Parse(typeof(YourEnum), yourString);

// The foo.ToString().Contains(",") check is necessary for enumerations marked with an [Flags] attribute
if (!Enum.IsDefined(typeof(YourEnum), foo) && !foo.ToString().Contains(","))
{
    throw new InvalidOperationException($"{yourString} is not an underlying value of the YourEnum enumeration.")
}

Update:

From number you can also

YourEnum foo = (YourEnum)Enum.ToObject(typeof(YourEnum) , yourInt);

C# – How to enumerate an enum

foreach (Suit suit in (Suit[]) Enum.GetValues(typeof(Suit)))
{
}

Note: The cast to (Suit[]) is not strictly necessary, but it does make the code 0.5 ns faster.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

C# – How to cast int to enum

C# – How to enumerate an enum

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