Thread: Serial Port - Receive Packet

Ok, I have tried a slightly different approach. This way it says that I am receiving 1 byte from the port. But I am having trouble with casting the receive buffer as a COMMAND_PACKET. Error: Conversion to non-scalar type requested. Highlighted in Yellow

Here is my latest attempt

Code:

int receive_packet(COMMAND_PACKET *packet)
{
     DWORD dwRetVal;
     DWORD buflen;
     LPVOID ReplyBuffer;
     unsigned char buf[20];
     buflen = sizeof(incoming_command);
     ReplyBuffer = (VOID*) malloc(buflen);
     if(ReplyBuffer == NULL) {
       printf("ReplyBuffer: Error");
       return 1;
       }
     memset(ReplyBuffer, 0, buflen);
     incoming_command = (COMMAND_PACKET *)ReplyBuffer;
     dwRetVal = ReadFile(handle,
                    buf,
                    1,
                    &buflen,
                    NULL);
     if(dwRetVal != 0) {
                 printf("Received %ld bytes\n", dwRetVal);
                 printf("Received Packet: %s\n", buf[1]);
                 }

}

in the code incoming_command is defined as a COMMAND_PACKET

Do you see why I want to cast ReplyBuffer as a COMMAND_PACKET, so that I can read it?
How might this be acomplished?

As I stated incoming_comand is of type COMMAND_PACKET

Code:

typedef struct
  {
  ubyte
    command;
  ubyte
    data_length;
  ubyte
    data[MAX_DATA_LENGTH];
  WORD_UNION
    CRC;
  }COMMAND_PACKET;

I just want to know how I would over come the Error: Conversion to non-scalar type requested. And at the same time be able to print to screen what is stored in the received buffer.

Is it essential to have a process running that is constantly listening for bytes to read in the port?