Arduino convert ascii characters to string - string

I'm using this sensor with an arduino board.
On page 2, it describes the serial output from pin 5.
http://www.maxbotix.com/documents/HRXL-MaxSonar-WR_Datasheet.pdf
The output is an ASCII capital "R", followed by four ASCII character
digits representing the range in millimeters,followed by a carriage
return (ASCII 13). The serial data format is 9600 baud, 8 data bits, no parity,
with one stop bit (9600-8-N-1).
This is my arduino code (which isn't correct). It only outputs the '82' which is the capital R.
void setup()
{
Serial.begin(9600);
}
void loop()
{
int data = Serial.read();
Serial.println(data);
delay (1000);
}
How do I get a distance reading to a string?
Many thanks

Do you tried the readBytesUntil method ?
You should use it like that :
byte DataToRead [6];
Serial.readBytesUntil(char(13), DataToRead, 6);
Your data is contained into DataToRead (your 'R' in DataToRead[0] etc.)

As I read it, the question was:
How do you convert a byte (ascii) representation of a character into a readable alpha-numeric character like "a" versus 97?
The actual quesion: Arduino convert ascii characters to string.
Why do ppl post responses that don't answer the question?
Not exact answer but casting with (char) will get you on the way there.
char inByte = 0;
inByte = (char)Serial.read(); // ascii 97 received
Serial.println((char)inByte); // => prints an 'a' without the quotes

Related

Arduino serial data manipulation - Sensors Serial Data, Read and parse to variables

I send 3 set of data from 3 sensors from Arduino 1 (router) to another Arduino(coordinator) to with wireless technology (xbee):
On coordinator, I receive wireless data from this 3 sensors(from the router) perfectly. The data stream is something like this(each sensor data on its line):
22.5624728451
944
8523
I want to have these 3 values as 3 variables that get updated constantly and then pass these values on to the rest of the program to make something like print on LCD or something else:
temperature=22. 5624728451
gas=944
smoke=8523
Initially, I had only 2 sensors and I send the data of these 2 sensors something like this:
22.5624728451944(22.5624728451 – temperature, 944 - gas) and I received both of them on the same line and divided everything into two variables(with readString.substring() ) with the code below. But now I have 3 sensors and I receive data on a separate line because I don't know which is the length of each data string … And I can't use the same technique (sending only one string that contain all sensor data on the same line and then divide them)
My old code:
#include <LiquidCrystal.h>
LiquidCrystal lcd(12,11,10,9,8,7);
String temperature;
String gas;
String readString;
void setup() {
Serial.begin(9600);
lcd.begin(16, 2);
}
void loop() {
while (Serial.available() > 0)
{
char IncomingData = Serial.read();
readString += IncomingData ;
temperature = readString.substring(0, 13); //get the first 13 characters
gas = readString.substring(13, 16); //get the last 3 characters
Serial.print(IncomingData); //here I have my string: 20.1324325452924 wichs is updating properly when I have sensor values changes
// Process message when new line character is DatePrimite
if (IncomingData == '\n')
{
Serial.println(temperature);
lcd.setCursor(0,0);
lcd.write("T:");
lcd.print(temperature);
delay(500);
temperature = ""; // Clear DatePrimite buffer
Serial.println(gaz);
lcd.begin(16, 2);
lcd.setCursor(0,1);
lcd.write("G:");
lcd.print(gas);
delay(500);
gaz = ""; // Clear DatePrimite buffer
readString = "";
}
}
}
All I want to do now is to assign a variable for every sensor data (3 lines – 3 variables for each line) updated constantly and then pass these values on to the rest of the program. Does anyone have any idea how to modify the code tO work in this situation?
Thank you in advance!
I would recommend that you concatenate the values into the same line on the sending end and use a delimiter like a comma along with string.split() on the receiving end if you are committed to using string values. EDIT: It appears Arduino does not have the string.split() function. See this conversation for an example.
An alternative would be to set a standard byte length and send the numbers as binary instead of ASCII encoded strings representing numbers. See this post on the Arudino forum for a little background. I am recommending sending the number in raw byte notation rather than as ASCII characters. When you define a variable as in integer on the arduino it defaults to 16-bit signed integer value. A float is a 32-bit floating point number. If, for example, you send a float and two ints as binary values the float will always be the first 4 bytes, the first int, the next 2 and the last int the last 2. The order of the bytes (endianness, or most significant byte first (Big Endian, Motorolla style)/least significant bit first (Little Endian, Intel style)).

Why is my data converted to ASCII using Serial.print function in arduino?

I am coding a small software to send data with an RN2483 transciever, and I have realised that my data is converted to ASCII when I sent it through serial. It is to say, I have the following part in the sender, the data has to be HEX
String aux = String(message.charAt(i),HEX);
dataToBeTx = "radio tx " + aux+ "\r\n";
Serial1.print(dataToBeTx)
On the receiver I am reading Serial1 till I get the message, which I receive properly, however it is an ASCII representation of the HEX data, and I would like to have it HEX, I mean, I send HI that is converted to HEX (H I=>0x48 0x49) on the receiver if I translate that value to HEX again I got different things than my H or I , so I guess it is being encoded in ASCII, how can I ride off from that?
Thanks in advance,
regards
It is very unclear what you are trying to achieve. The first line in your code converts a single character into a string in hexadecimal. For example:
void setup ()
{
Serial.begin (115200);
Serial.println ();
String aux = String('A', HEX);
Serial.print ("aux = ");
Serial.println (aux);
} // end of setup
void loop ()
{
} // end of loop
Output:
aux = 41
So the 'A' in my code (internally represented as 0x41) has now become two ASCII characters: 4 and 1. That is, a string which is two bytes long.
So, in a sense, you can say it is already in hex.
if I translate that value to HEX again I got different things than my H or I
Well, yes, if you translate it "again" then you would get 0x34 and 0x31.
Do you want to send A in this case, 41 or something else?

C++/CLI converting from a String^ to array <Byte>

I have a serial port application which is written C++/CLI
To read data from the ports input buffer I am using
String^ inputString = System::IO:Ports::SerialPort::ReadExisting();
I need to convert the inputString value to an array of bytes. I have tried using
array<Byte> ^unicodeBytes = System::Text::Encoding::Unicode->GetBytes( inputString );
This works so long as the value being read in to my port input buffer is less than 0x7F (hex). Any values greater than 0x7F gets converted to 0x3F = "?"
E.g. if I send two bytes comprising {0x7F, 0xFF} to my input port then when I read and convert them the array unicodeBytes = { 0x7F 0x00, 0x3F 0x00} when looked at in the debugger watch window of VS2008
According to the unicode tables I have looked at OxFF is a valid unicode value equal to a latin small letter 'y' with two small dots above it.
Any suggestins on how to convert 'y' with two samll dots = 0xFF in string format to 0xFF in a byte array would be greatly appreciated.
Use the SerialPort's Read method to get bytes instead of decoding encoded text:
int BufferSize = <some size>;
array<byte> ^bytes = gcnew array<byte>(BufferSize);
int available = serialPort->BytesAvailable;
serialPort->Read(bytes, 0, Math::Min(available, BufferSize));

How can I have Packed decimal and normal text in a single file?

I need to generate a fixed width file with few of the columns in packed decimal format and few of the columns in normal number format. I was able to generate. I zipped the file and passed it on to the mainframe team. They imported it and unzipped the file and converted to EBCDIC. They were able to get the packed decimal columns without any problem but the normal number fields seemed to have messed up and are unreadable. Is there something specific that I need to do while process/zip my file before sending it to mainframe? I am using COMP3 packed decimal. Currently working on Windows XP but the real production will be on RHEL.
Thanks in advance for helping me out. This is urgent.
Edited on 06 June 2011:
This is how it looks when I switch on HEX.
. . . . . . . . . . A . .
333333333326004444
210003166750C0000
The 'A' in the first row has a slight accent so it is not the actual upper case A.
210003166 is the raw decimal. The value of the packed decimal before comp3 conversion is 000000002765000 (we can ignore the leading zeroes if required).
UPDATE 2 : 7th June 2011
This how I am converting creating the file that gets loaded into the mainframe:
File contains two columns - Identification number & amount. Identification number doesn't require comp3 conversion and amount requires comp3 conversion. Comp3 conversion is performed at oracle sql end. Here is the query for performing the conversion:
Select nvl(IDENTIFIER,' ') as IDENTIFIER, nvl(utl_raw.cast_to_varchar2(comp3.convert(to_number(AMOUNT))),'0') as AMOUNT from TABLEX where IDENTIFIER = 123456789
After executing the query, I do the following in Java:
String query = "Select nvl(IDENTIFIER,' ') as IDENTIFIER, nvl(utl_raw.cast_to_varchar2(comp3.convert(to_number(AMOUNT))),'0') as AMOUNT from TABLEX where IDENTIFIER = 210003166"; // this is the select query with COMP3 conversion
ResultSet rs = getConnection().createStatement().executeQuery(sb.toString());
sb.delete(0, sb.length()-1);
StringBuffer appendedValue = new StringBuffer (200000);
while(rs.next()){
appendedValue.append(rs.getString("IDENTIFIER"))
.append(rs.getString("AMOUNT"));
}
File toWriteFile = new File("C:/transformedFile.txt");
FileWriter writer = new FileWriter(toWriteFile, true);
writer.write(appendedValue.toString());
//writer.write(System.getProperty(ComponentConstants.LINE_SEPERATOR));
writer.flush();
appendedValue.delete(0, appendedValue.length() -1);
The text file thus generated is manually zipped by a winzip tool and provided to the mainframe team. Mainframe team loads the file into mainframe and browses the file with HEXON.
Now, coming to the conversion of the upper four bits of the zoned decimal, should I be doing it before righting it to the file? Or am I to apply the flipping at the mainframe end? For now, I have done the flipping at java end with the following code:
public static String toZoned(String num) {
if (num == null) {
return "";
}
String ret = num.trim();
if (num.equals("") || num.equals("-") || num.equals("+")) {
// throw ...
return "";
}
char lastChar = ret.substring(ret.length() - 1).charAt(0);
//System.out.print(ret + " Char - " + lastChar);
if (lastChar < '0' || lastChar > '9') {
} else if (num.startsWith("-")) {
if (lastChar == '0') {
lastChar = '}';
} else {
lastChar = (char) (lastChar + negativeDiff);
}
ret = ret.substring(1, ret.length() - 1) + lastChar;
} else {
if (num.startsWith("+")) {
ret = ret.substring(1);
}
if (lastChar == '0') {
lastChar = '{';
} else {
lastChar = (char) (lastChar + positiveDiff);
}
ret = ret.substring(0, ret.length() - 1) + lastChar;
}
//System.out.print(" - " + lastChar);
//System.out.println(" -> " + ret);
return ret;
}
The identifier becomes 21000316F at the java end and that is what gets written to the file. I have passed on the file to mainframe team and awaiting the output with HEXON. Do let me know if I am missing something. Thanks.
UPDATE 3: 9th Jun 2011
Ok I have got mainframe results. I am doing this now.
public static void main(String[] args) throws FileNotFoundException {
// TODO Auto-generated method stub
String myString = new String("210003166");
byte[] num1 = new byte[16];
try {
PackDec.stringToPack("000000002765000",num1,0,15);
System.out.println("array size: " + num1.length);
} catch (DecimalOverflowException e1) {
// TODO Auto-generated catch block
e1.printStackTrace();
} catch (DataException e1) {
// TODO Auto-generated catch block
e1.printStackTrace();
}
byte[] ebc = null;
try {
ebc = myString.getBytes("Cp037");
} catch (UnsupportedEncodingException e) {
// TODO Auto-generated catch block
e.printStackTrace();
}
PrintWriter pw = new PrintWriter("C:/transformationTextV1.txt");
pw.printf("%x%x%x%x%x%x%x%x%x",ebc[0],ebc[1],ebc[2],ebc[3],ebc[4], ebc[5], ebc[6], ebc[7], ebc[8]);
pw.printf("%x%x%x%x%x%x%x%x%x%x%x%x%x%x%x",num1[0],num1[1],num1[2],num1[3],num1[4], num1[5], num1[6], num1[7],num1[8], num1[9],num1[10], num1[11],num1[12], num1[13], num1[14],num1[15]);
pw.close();
}
And I get the following output:
Á.Á.Á.Á.Á.Á.Á.Á.Á.................Ä
63636363636363636333333333333333336444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444
62616060606361666600000000000276503000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
I must be doing something very wrong!
UPDATE 4: 14th Jun 2011
This query was resolved after using James' suggestion. I am currently using the below code and it gives me the expected output:
public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
// TODO Auto-generated method stub
String myString = new String("210003166");
byte[] num1 = new byte[16];
try {
PackDec.stringToPack("02765000",num1,0,8);
} catch (DecimalOverflowException e1) {
// TODO Auto-generated catch block
e1.printStackTrace();
} catch (DataException e1) {
// TODO Auto-generated catch block
e1.printStackTrace();
}
byte[] ebc = null;
try {
ebc = myString.getBytes("Cp037");
} catch (UnsupportedEncodingException e) {
// TODO Auto-generated catch block
e.printStackTrace();
}
FileOutputStream writer = new FileOutputStream("C:/transformedFileV3.txt");
writer.write(ebc,0,9);
writer.write(num1,0,8);
writer.close();
}
As you are coding in Java and you require a mix of EBCDIC and COMP-3 in your output you wiil need to do the unicode to EBCDIC conversion in your own program.
You cannot leave this up to the file transfer utility as it will corrupt your COMP-3 fields.
But luckily you are using Java so its easy using the getBytes method of the string class..
Working Example:
package com.tight.tran;
import java.io.*;
import name.benjaminjwhite.zdecimal.DataException;
import name.benjaminjwhite.zdecimal.DecimalOverflowException;
import name.benjaminjwhite.zdecimal.PackDec;
public class worong {
/**
* #param args
* #throws IOException
*/
public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
// TODO Auto-generated method stub
String myString = new String("210003166");
byte[] num1 = new byte[16];
try {
PackDec.stringToPack("000000002765000",num1,0,15);
System.out.println("array size: " + num1.length);
} catch (DecimalOverflowException e1) {
// TODO Auto-generated catch block
e1.printStackTrace();
} catch (DataException e1) {
// TODO Auto-generated catch block
e1.printStackTrace();
}
byte[] ebc = null;
try {
ebc = myString.getBytes("Cp037");
} catch (UnsupportedEncodingException e) {
// TODO Auto-generated catch block
e.printStackTrace();
}
FileOutputStream writer = new FileOutputStream("C:/transformedFile.txt");
writer.write(ebc,0,9);
writer.write(num1,0,15);
writer.close();
}
}
Produces (for me!):
0000000: f2f1 f0f0 f0f3 f1f6 f600 0000 0000 0000 ................
0000010: 0000 0000 2765 000c 0d0a ....'e....
"They were able to get the packed decimal columns without any problem but the normal number fields seemed to have messed up " would seem to indicate that they did not translate ASCII to EBCDIC.
ASCII zero x'30' should translate to EBCDIC zero x'F0'. If this was not done then (depending on the EBCDIC code page) then x'30' does not map to a valid character on most EBCDIC displays.
However even if they did translate you will have different problem as all or some of your COMP-3 data will be corrupted. The simple translate programs have no way to distinguish between character and comp-3 so they will convert a number such as x'00303C' to x'00F06E' which will cause any mainframe program to bomb out with the dreaded "0C7 Decimal Arithmetic Exception" ( culturally equivalent to "StackOverflow").
So basically you are in a lose/lose situation. I would suggest you ditch the packed decimals and use plain ASCII characters for your numbers.
The zipping should not cause you a problem, except, the file transfer utility was probably doing ASCII to EBCDIC on the plain text file, but, not on the zipped file.
"... converted to EBCDIC..." may be part of the problem.
Unless the mainframe conversion process is "aware" of the record layout it is
working with (ie. which columns contain binary, packed and/or character data),
it is going to mess something up because the mapping process is format dependant.
You have indicated the COMP-3 data are ok, I am willing to bet that either
the "converted to EBCDIC" doesn't do anything, or it is performing some sort of
ASCII to COMP-3 conversion on all of your data - thus messing up non COMP-3 data.
Once you get to the mainframe, this is what you should see:
COMP-3 - each byte contains 2 digits except the last (right most, least
significant). The least significant
byte contains only 1 decimal digit in the upper 4 bits and the sign field in the
lower 4 bits. Each decimal digit is recorded in hex (eg. 5 = B'0101')
Zoned Decimal (normal numbers) - each byte contains 1 decimal digit. The upper
four bits should always contain HEX F, except possibly the least most significant
byte where the upper 4 bits may contain the sign and the lower 4 bits a digit. The
4 bit digit is recored in hex (eg. 5 = B'0101')
You need to see what the un-zipped converted data look like on the mainframe.
Ask someone to "BROWSE" your file on the mainframe with "HEX ON" so you can
see what the actual HEX content of your file is. From there you should be able
to figure out what sort hoops and loops you need to jump through to make this
work.
Here are a couple of links that may be of help to you:
IBM Mainframe Numeric data representation
ASCII to EBCDIC chart
Update: If the mainframe guys can see the correct digits when browsing with
"HEX ON" then there are two possible problems:
Digit is stored in the wrong nibble. The digit should be visible in the
lower 4 bits. If it is in the upper 4 bits, that is definitely a problem.
The non-digit nibble (upper 4 bits) does not contain HEX 'F' or valid sign value.
Unsigned digits always contain HEX 'F' in the upper 4 bits of the byte. If the number
is signed (eg. PIC S9(4) - or something like that), the upper 4 bits of the least
most significant digit (last one) should contain HEX 'C' or 'D'.
Here is a bit of a screen shot of what BROWSE with 'HEX ON' should look like:
File Edit Edit_Settings Menu Utilities Compilers Test Help
VIEW USERID.TEST.DATA - 01.99 Columns 00001 00072
Command ===> Scroll ===> CSR
****** ***************************** Top of Data ******************************
000001 0123456789
FFFFFFFFFF44444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444
012345678900000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
000002 |¬?"±°
012345678944444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444
FFFFFFFFF000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
000003 àíÃÏhr
012345678944444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444
012345678900000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The lines beginning with '000001', '000002' and '000003' shows 'plain' text. the two lines below
each of them show the HEX representation of the character above it. The first line of HEX
shows the upper 4 bits, the second line the lower 4 bits.
Line 1 contains the number '0123456789' followed by blank spaces (HEX 40).
Line 2 shows junk because the upper and lower nibbles are flipped. The exact silly character
is just a matter of code page selection so do not get carried away with what you see.
Line 3 shows similar junk because both upper and lower nibbles contain a digit.
Line '000001' is the sort of thing you should see for unsigned zoned decimal numbers
on an IBM mainframe using EBCDIC (single byte character set).
UPDATE 2
You added a HEX display to your question on June 6th. I think maybe there
were a couple of formatting issues. If this is what
you were trying to display, the following discussion might be of help to you:
..........A..
33333333326004444
210003166750C0000
You noted that this is a display of two "numbers":
210003166 in Zoned Decimal
000000002765000 in COMP-3
This is what an IBM mainframe would be expecting:
210003166 :Á : <-- Display character
FFFFFFFFF00002600 <-- Upper 4 bits of each byte
2100031660000750C <-- Lower 4 bits of each byte
Notice the differences between what you have and the above:
The upper 4 bits of the Zoned Decimal data in your display contain
a HEX '3', they should contain a HEx 'F'. The lower 4 bits contain the
expected digit. Get those upper 4 bits fixed
and you should be good to go. BTW... it looks to me that whatever 'conversion' you
have attempted to Zoned Decimal is having no affect. The bit patterns you have for
each digit in the Zoned Decimal correspond to digits in the ASCII character set.
In the COMP-3 field you indicated that the leading zeros could be truncated.
Sorry, but they are either part of the number or they are not! My display above
includes leading zeros. Your display appears to have truncated leading zeros and then padded
trailing bytes with spaces (HEX 40). This won't work! COMP-3 fields are defined
with a fixed number of digits and all digits must be represented - that means leading
zeros are required to fill out the high order digits of each number.
The Zoned Decimal fix should be pretty easy... The COMP-3 fix is probably just a
matter of not stripping leading zeros (otherwise it looks pretty good).
UPDATE 3...
How do you flip the 4 high order bits? I got the impression somewhere along the line that you might be doing your conversion via a Java program.
I, unfortunately, am a COBOL programmer, but I'll take a shot at it (don't
laugh)...
Based on what I have seen here, all you need to do is take each ASCII
digit and flip the high 4 bits to HEX F and the result will be the equivalent
unsighed Zoned Decimal EBCDIC digit. Try something like...
public static byte AsciiToZonedDecimal(byte b) {
//flip upper 4 bits to Hex F...
return (byte)(b | 0xF0)
};
Apply the above to each ASCII digit and the result should be an unsigned EBCDIC
Zoned Decimal number.
UPDATE 4...
At this point the answers provided by James Anderson should put you on the right track.
James pointed you to name.benjaminjwhite.zdecimal and
this looks like it has all the Java classes you need to convert your data. The
StringToZone method
should be able to convert the IDENTIFIER string you get back from Oracle into a byte array that you then append to the
output file.
I am not very familiar with Java but I believe Java Strings are stored internally as Unicode Characters which are 16 bits long. The EBCDIC
characters you are trying to create are only 8 bits long. Given this, you might be better off writting to the output file using byte arrays (as opposed to strings).
Just a hunch from a non Java programmer.
The toZoned method in your question above appears to only concern itself with the first
and last characters of the string. Part of the problem is that each and every character
needs to be converted - the 4 upper bits of each byte, except possibly the last, needs to be patched to contain Hex F. The lower 4 bits contain one digit.
BTW... You can pick up the source for this Java utility class at: http://www.benjaminjwhite.name/zdecimal
It sounds like the problem is in the EBCDIC conversion. The packed decimal would use characters as byte values, and isn't subject to the transliterations EBCDIC <-> ASCII.
If they see control characters (or square markers on Windows), then they may be viewing ASCII data as EBCDIC.
If they see " ñòóôõö øù" in place of "0123456789" then they are viewing EBCDIC characters in a viewer using ANSI, or extended ASCII.

vc++ 6.0 serial communicaton

In vc++ i am using MScomm for serial communication,
i received data in this format 02120812550006050.0,
i am not gettng how to read this ,in which format it is,
begning starting frame and at the end ending file, remaing i dont know.
EDIT 1:
it contains date time and data how i can seperate this one
The funny characters are markers indicating things like record start, record end, field separator and so on. Without knowing the actual protocol, it's a little hard to tell.
The data is a lot easier.
Between the 000f and 0002 markers you have a date/time field, 2nd of December 2008, 12:55:00.
Between 0002 and 0003 marker, it looks like a simple float which could be a dollar value or anytrhing really, it depends on what's at the other end of the link.
To separate it, I'm assuming you've read it into a variable character array of some sort. Just look for the markers and extract the fields in between them.
The date/time is fixed size and the value probably is as well (since it has a leading 0), so you could probably just use memcpy's to pull out the information you need from the buffer, null terminate them, convert the value to a float, and voila.
If it is fixed format, you can use something like:
static void extract (char *buff, char *date, char *time, float *val) {
// format is "\x01\x0fDDMMYYhhmmss\x02vvvvvvv\x03\x04"
char temp[8];
memcpy (date, buff + 2, 6); date[6] = '\0';
memcpy (time, buff + 8, 6); time[6] = '\0';
memcpy (temp, buff + 15, 7); temp[7] = '\0';
*val = atof (temp);
}
and call it with:
char buff[26]; // must be pre-filled before calling extract()
char dt[8];
char tm[8];
float val;
extract (buffer, dt, tm, &val);
If not fixed format, you just have to write code to detect the positions of the field separators and extract what's between them.
It is unlikely that you will figure it out unless you know what you are communicating with and how it communicates with you. (hint -- you can try telling us)

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