11 years, 4 months ago.

Storing data as an array

Hello, guys. I have a problem in programming. I use a software, called realterm, on PC to send 7 or 8 bytes hexdeciaml commands, like "FF 01 00 00 00 00 01". And I wanna store the command in an array so that I can use one byte among the command. For example, the command is "FF 01 01 00 00 00 02", stored as an array, commmand[7]. And command[0] = FF. Additionlly, what is the meaning of "pc.putc" and "pc.getc"?

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posted by Stephen Paulger 28 Nov 2012

1 Answer

11 years, 4 months ago.

getc and putc get and put single characters from and to a buffer. Some relevant pages of the handbook are SerialPC and Serial.

It looks to me like your code is mostly unreachable. You will be getting a compilation warning about that and another about the i==0 which does nothing. Also remember that arrays are zero indexed so you'll get an error when the for loop tries to store a value in command[7]

#include "mbed.h"

Serial pc(USBTX, USBRX);

int main() {
    pc.printf("The commands received are");
    while(1) {
        if (pc.readable()) {
            pc.putc(pc.getc());
        }
    }  // This while loop never finishes, all following code is unreachable.
    int i, command[7];
    for (i=0; i<=7; i++) {  // The less-than-or-equal-to (<=) should be replaced with less-than (<)
        i == 0;  // expression has no effect
        command[i] = pc.getc();
        pc.putc(command[i]);
    }
}

You may have better luck using gets. This allows you to read a number of bytes into a buffer all at once.

#include "mbed.h"

Serial pc(USBTX, USBRX);

int main() {
    // Assuming commands are 7 bytes, 8th byte is for string termination
    char command[8]; 
    
    pc.printf("The commands received are\n");
    
    while(1) {
        if (pc.readable()) {
            pc.gets(command, 8);
            for (int i=0; i<8; i++) {
                pc.printf("%x ", command[i]);
            }
            pc.printf("\n");
        }
    }
}

Output (typing "abcdefg")

The commands recieved are
61 62 63 64 65 66 67 0

I hope that helps.

Accepted Answer

Thanks a lot for you help. But I have some questions in your program. First is why the 8th is 0? Can I store 8 numbers in command[i]? Why the output is 61 in hex when you input "a"?

Regards

posted by Neil Powell 28 Nov 2012

The last number is a zero as that is the string termination byte. You can store whatever number of bytes you want as long as you allow one extra for the string termination. "a" is represented in ASCII by the number 97, 97 converted into hexadecimal is 61. If the printf statement had "%d" the output would have been "97 98 99 100 101 102 103 0".

posted by Stephen Paulger 28 Nov 2012

Okay, cheers. Is there any method to get rid off "0"at the end of array? Because what I want are only the first seven bytes

posted by Neil Powell 28 Nov 2012

How can I change the array from char to int?

posted by Neil Powell 29 Nov 2012