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Using WinWedge with The FIX |
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Using WinWedge and the FIX DDE UO driver, data from simple serial devices can be
incorporated into a FIX database without writing an l/O driver specifically for the
device. Outlined below are the basic steps to set up a serial communications link between
WinWedge and a simple serial device (a bar code scanner) and to set up a DDE
link between WinWedge and The FIX. These steps are fairly typical for most
simple serial devices like electronic measuring instruments, scales, bar code readers and
temperature sensors. |
Setting Up the
Software Wedge
Install WinWedge on your PC and
start it. This will display a setup menu that allows you to configure WinWedge
for the particular serial device that you will be using.
From the Mode menu, select DDE Server. This
will cause a dialog box to appear asking for a few DDE parameters for the application that
you will be communicating with. These parameters are not used by The FIX and therefore may
either be ignored or cleared out.
From the Port menu, configure the Software
Wedge appropriately for your serial device.
From the Define menu, select lnput Record
Structure and select the correct parameters necessary to describe how WinWedge
should parse, filter and format your incoming serial data.
From the File menu, select save to save your
Software Wedge configuration.
From the Activate menu, put the Software
Wedge in either Test or Normal mode. Test Mode allows the user to return to the main setup
menu to edit WinWedge configuration. Normal mode is for runtime use only.
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Setting Up FIX
If the DDE driver is not configured in the
SCU, add it and start the FIX.
Add an 10-based block to the database. Set
up the Hardware Specifications section as follows:
Device: DDE I/O Address:
=winwedge|comX!field(y)
"x" is the number of the COM port you're
communicating with. "y" is the specific field in the l/O data to read.
For example, the
following l/O address can be used in a Text block to read text data from
a bar code
scanner connected to COM1. I/O Address: = winwedge|com1!field(1).
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| Because the data sent by the bar code scanner
is simply text followed by a CR-LF, it is all contained in Field 1. In the Pre-Transfer
Character Translations table (accessed from WinWedge Define Menu), the CR-LF was
removed by translating it to NUL. |
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