open driver

Establishes a connection to a peripheral device so you can send data to it or get data from it.

# Metadata

Platforms: desktop, server OS: mac, windows, linux Introduced: 1.1.1 Security: disk

# Syntax

open driver driverName [for [{[encoding] text | binary}] {update | read | write}]

# Params

- driverName : The driverName specifies the name of a device driver that's installed on the system. - encoding : The encoding to be used. - "ASCII" - "UTF-16" - "UTF-16BE" - "UTF-16LE" - "UTF-32" - "UTF-32BE" - "UTF-32LE" - "UTF-8" - "CP1252"

# Examples

open driver "/dev/cu.modem" for binary write

open driver (line 3 of it) for text read

open driver "COM2:"

# Description

Use the open driver command to communicate with USB peripheral device, peripheral device attached to a serial port other than the modem and printer port, and other peripheral devices.

If you don't specifyormode, the driver is opened in text mode. (For most devices, you should use binary mode.)

Use the *read* form to open the driver for reading. If the driver is opened for reading, you can use the read from driver command to get data from the peripheral device, but you can't send data to it.

Use the *write* form to open the driver for writing. If the driver is opened for writing, you can use the write to driver command to send data to the peripheral device but you can't read from it.

Use the *update* form to open the driver for both reading and writing. If the driver is opened for update, you can use both the read from driver and write to driver commands to send data to the peripheral device or get data from it.

>*Note:* On Unix, peripheral device can be > addressed as part of the file system. This means that on such systems, > the following two statements are equivalent:

>*Tip:* Because OS X is based on Unix, you can use the open file > command, as mentioned above, as a replacement for open driver on > OS X.

On Windows systems, the open driver command is equivalent to the open file command when the driverName is COMn:, COMn:, etc.

If the device is a serial port, you can set the serialControlString property to specify the speed, parity, and other settings. Set the serialControlString before using the open driver command.

# Tags

networking,

# See

- **keyword:** COMn: - **property:** serialControlString, recordInput - **command:** write to driver, open file - **glossary:** property, Unix, statement, command, peripheral device, OS X - **control structure:** function