Desktop serial read from Arduino in generic C or C++

Using Arduino Networking, Protocols, and Devices
5

PaulS:

  1. I thought Firmata is out of date. Is that true? Does this library useful in a desktop program communicating over the serial port?

It's not out of date. It's simply not being supported (or visibly supported, I should say) for the Arduino. Anyway, the sending application needs to send data in the Firmata format. Is this something you know how to do?

2) The examples seem to have code developed in the Ardunio IDE that execute in the desktop under Windows. Is that true? If so, what do I do to make that work?

Which examples are you referring to? Applications developed in the Arduino IDE run on the Arduino, not on the PC.

  1. Is the "Processing" library useful for communications over the serial port?

The Processing application is. It's more than a library.

I'll leave Firmata for now.
The code that confused me: Arduino Playground - HomePage, see Example. The setup fr that code is very similar to software that is downloaded to the Arduino.
On that page, it talks about libraries, but I didn't see a link to getting the "Processing application" (or IDE?). I assume the "import" statements are for that IDE.

And, at last, here: Arduino Playground - CPPWindows. This is just a class definition but its supposed to have been tested with Code::Blocks and MINGW. I'll let you know. Well, the class compiles under CodeBlocks and MINGW. Would be nice to have an example of use, but the one given is for VC++ 2008 Express.

There is also a class (Google serial_src_zip), but when I try and compile that, it says it can't find "stdafx.h", and I don't know why that happens or how to fix that. I seem to recall that stdafx is for MFC. Its been too long. Is that not true?