am looking for a Perl Module which will allow me to talk to my modem, dial out numbers, and maybe send data in the X.25 protocal. This is for hobby purposes, and I have no maliscous intents (so that should clear the ethical issues to those who know what the hell I am talking about). I know Perl can interact with C/C++ in various module form, and well, I am actually asking for a CPAN modem as I have no idea what to do when talking to my modem.

What you are looking for is on one hand not exactly rocket science and yet not a cake-walk either. Essentially it boils down to the following elements (and this is Sunday before I have had my first cup of coffee so I may miss something)

• Establishing logical connectivity to your computer's RS232 port or modem.

  As mentioned elsewhere in the thread there is Device::Modem which when I looked at the docs seems to have very limited functionality. I might be tempted to crack some books and learn how my particular OS handles RS232 devices and roll my own module via h2xs.

• Commnicating to the modem device via the "AT" command set or equivilant thereof. Most modern modems use the AT command set so this is a safe bet.
• Handling the X.25 protocol.

  My very faint memories of the X.25 protocol lead me to believe that this is not for the faint of heart. Again this may be an application where I'd write my own module that I set up to pass data to it and let the workings of the module handle the encapsulation of the data within an X.25 packet.

  Likewise this module would deal with un-encapsulating data from recieved X.25 packets.

• Somehow making this all work with some form of Expect or Expect::Simple to deal with the prospect of "I sent this and I'm expecting that" type of functionality.

In your post you say you want to deal with X.25 over a modem. Are you sure you aren't using an X.25 PAD? If so the rules of the game may change.

Hmmm... I am not sure if I trually know what I am doing here. I guess Perl popped into my head as Perl is very decent for quick demos, and I will generally jump onto perl for a quick demo purpose.

I didn't really think of how much would end up getting written in C code anyways. In short, I really didn't design much of what I would be doing :/

Please don't think I am a troll for posting this :(

As per your last question, seeing as how I have used the device for ppp based connections, I am going to guess it is a modem.

edit: already getting the old negative reputation points. Why do I always get those when I do something silly like admit I might have been foolish?

-- Jamie Payne

Thanks, I didn't bother to search CPAN, because I didn't realise they would use a name that makes sense. I figured it would be group with something silly sounding like 'POE' or 'LWP'

-- Jamie Payne

I didn't bother to search CPAN

And yet you asked people here to do the job for you?

Just a note from an old BBS'er. For any platform if you want to interact directly with a modem using its serial port and AT commands the modem has to have a hardware interface. "WinModems" or software driven modems as are common these days won't let you talk to them directly as a serial port. (e.g. from a dos prompt you couldn't do 'echo ATA > COM1' to make it pickup the phone) Anyone feel free to correct me if I'm way off on this -- its been many years since I coded with a modem.

I have a recollection of some Linux drivers for winmodems going to the effort of faking a Hayes command set within the driver, and then faking a ttyS device so it would look exactly like a normal modem.

That's making the big assumption that he uses Linux. Under windows you probably have to call some silly "get_win_handle_for_serial_devices_no_not those_,_the_other_ones()". That's just a guess, of course.

___________________
Jeremy
I didn't believe in evil until I dated it.

Well, I found out that Device::Modem has a requirement for Device::SerialPort... so I should be able to play with either one.

-- Jamie Payne