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Calculating a COM port checksum value

I am having a bit of trouble sending custom COM Port serial data to some LED message boards. I use VB6 but really this is not programming language specific. I send the data and then am supposed to send a checksum value. The commucations manual just says to add the values sent and that is the checksum. But when I use a comport capture program and look at succesful messages I have sent I cannot figure out how they got the checksum. Here are some examples:

00 00 00 00 00 01 46 46 30 30 02 41 30 43 31 39 ......FF00.A0C19
37 46 30 30 30 30 32 33 30 30 FF FF FF 31 FE 45 7F00002300ÿÿÿ1þE
FD 41 54 03 30 30 44 37 04 ýAT.00D7.

You can ignore the first 10 values. The checksum is calculated starting at 02. Then you are supposed to add everything up until the 03 on the bottom row. The 30 30 44 37 is the checksum value. When I add the values between 02 and 03 (including 02 and 03) I get 928h - not 30 30 44 37.

The above example just sends the letter "T" to the board. (Third character on bottom row). The junk before and after the "T" is just formatting info.

So next I sent a "U" to the board and captured the output.

00 00 00 00 00 01 46 46 30 30 02 41 30 43 31 39 ......FF00.A0C19
37 46 30 30 30 30 32 33 30 30 FF FF FF 31 FE 45 7F00002300ÿÿÿ1þE
FD 41 55 03 30 30 44 36 04 ýAU.00D6.

The checksum actually went down 1 in value instead of up 1 like I would expect.

Any ideas?

Thread7

ASKER

I found some code that gets me on the right track. But for the short "T" and "U" it is one off. With longer sets of data it is quite a ways off. I'll post below:

Public Function GetCheckSum(ByVal sMessage As String, Optional ByVal bIncludeMessage As Boolean) As String
'//Check that there is something in the sMessage
If sMessage = vbNullString Then
Exit Function
End If

Dim CheckSum As Long
Dim i As Integer

For i = 1 To Len(sMessage)
CheckSum = CheckSum + Asc(Mid(sMessage, i, 1))
Next

CheckSum = 256 - CheckSum Mod 256
CheckSum = CheckSum Mod 256

GetCheckSum = Hex(CheckSum)

If (Len(GetCheckSum) = 1) Then
GetCheckSum = "0" & GetCheckSum
End If

If bIncludeMessage = True Then
GetCheckSum = sMessage & GetCheckSum
End If

End Function

Thread7

ASKER

Well I figured it out. After searching the net I found a shareware program called WinHexcom that lets you calculate checksums for various algorithms. They had an algorithm they called modulo 2 XOR. This would always take my strings and calculate a checksum that was just a value of one 01h off. So I knew that was close even though they don't disclose the algorithm. After experimenting with the XOR command I replicated the Winhexcom results. Then I implemented a somewhat crude If - Then statement to add a 1 if the final binary digit is 0.

Here is the code:

Public Function GetCheckSum(ByVal sMessage As String, Optional ByVal bIncludeMessage As Boolean) As String
'//Check that there is something in the sMessage
If sMessage = vbNullString Then
Exit Function
End If

Dim CheckSum As Long
Dim i As Integer

For i = 1 To Len(sMessage)
CheckSum = CheckSum Xor Asc(Mid(sMessage, i, 1))
Next

If (CheckSum Mod 2) = 1 Then
CheckSum = CheckSum - 1
Else
CheckSum = CheckSum + 1
End If

GetCheckSum = Hex(CheckSum)

If (Len(GetCheckSum) = 1) Then
GetCheckSum = "0" & GetCheckSum
End If

If bIncludeMessage = True Then
GetCheckSum = sMessage & GetCheckSum
End If

End Function

hiteshgupta1

IF ur problem has been solved then u can post a question in community support TA to delete this question

GrahamSkan

No need to delete. PAQ with points refund would be more appropriate. The solution looks well worth keeping.

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

ee_ai_construct

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