SerOut2 Dynamic Port Selection

[Melanie]

Careful Ingvar...

It only works on a very few PICs in a very few cases...

It does NOT work across all PICs and neither does it work against variants of the same PIC or versions of PICBasic.

I actually withdrew a posting I made about a year ago detailing the very same thing when I discovered that in all probability the chances of it NOT working are greater than the chances of success.

The only guaranteed things to work are the sixteen pins (0-15) as detailed in the manual, and then they are PIC type dependant (as per the table in the manual).

[anj]

Gday Mel
I have been watching this post with interest.
I know the array id method listed works for 16F876s 16F84s and 16F88s,
but looking at the datasheets Ports A,B and C are all contiguous in memory
ie x05, x06 etc.
on 12/3 this year PeterDeco posted re a similar problem, and whilst misinterpreting the post, tried portA.0 + X rather than portA.0(X), and said this also worked.
Based on the fact "PortA" just gets referenced to its memory locn via the include files, say x05 in a 16f88, is it possible ( knowing the memory map for the specific pic/variant ), to use a calculated reference point, rather than assume the bits are contiguous and ref by array practices.
Basically, what i am saying is do the functions that "expect a port" reference need it to come in as a standard symbol, or would the correct memory offset ( as a variable ) suffice.
I cant test, as i dont know how to make it fail currently ( under the old method ) with the chips i normally play with.
Andrew

[Melanie]

I spent quite a while (at least for me) on this last year.

I concluded that if it can't work across all PICs and all versions of PICBasic consistantly everytime, it shouldn't be used.

The only ways I address PIC pins is by aliasing the pin or by using the direct numeric (0-15).

The offset addressing method works for RAM and I've detailed this in the FAQ section, but I cannot reliably apply the same to Port Addressing. I have not redone my tests on V2.45 which had not been released at that time.

[Ingvar]

Bummer, i 've only used it once on ports and it worked just as expected. Good to know that it might not the next time .......