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I'm planning on writing a module to be used for directly printing the labels on SMD-reels, parts, boxes and etc. in our warehouse.

I've acquired few SATO CL412e industrial thermal printers with serial port. I'm familiar with printer programming languages (SBPL in this case), but I'm not sure how to access RS-232 port on client computer through OpenERP.

(Accessing RS232 on server computer would be easier, but our server is located far away from our warehouse)

Is there an easy way to access client computer serial port with OpenERP?

(I understand that the one option would be to write separate program for client computers that handle the serial port communication to thermal printer and XMLRPC to access OpenERP... but I'd like to integrate the thermal printing function to OpenERP if it's possible.)

Thanks for any advice!

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It would be easier to set the printer up as a printer on your operating system then use CUPS to print to the printer.

You can use the python subprocess function to access CUPS or whatever daemon handles RS-232 communication on your machine.

subprocess allows you to send commands as if you were typing on the CLI.

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That's an excellent idea, I never thought about CUPS. I think I'll change the printer interface cards from RS232 to Ethernet. I'll setup the printer on server-computer CUPS as RAW-printer. That way I can access the printers from which ever computer since our network is in the subnet between all our locations.

Thanks for the Advice!