Win32 System Services: The Heart of Windows® 98 and Windows® 2000

11.8. Other Communications Functions

There are several other communications functions that you may find useful in special situations. The PurgeComm function, for example, purges the contents of the input or output buffer.

PurgeComm	Clears input or output buffers
BOOL PurgeComm( HANDLE commHandle, DWORD action)
commHandle	Handle to a comm port
action	The action(s) to perform
Returns TRUE on success

Four actions are possible, one at a time or in combination with one another:

PURGE_TXABORT	Terminate all write operations
PURGE_RXABORT	Terminate all read operations
PURGE_TXCLEAR	Clear output buffer
PURGE_RXCLEAR	Clear input buffer

The FileFlushBuffers function, on the other hand, flushes the output buffer to the receiver, subject to normal flow-control ...