Bizzare output from Arduinio - arduino

Question

I'm trying to do something relatively simple with the Arduino (trying to get some lights to light up like a Simon says game) but I'm getting some really bizarre outputs
I got some really bizarre output on the pins so I took those parts of the code out to see it on a serial monitor to see what the contents of the array that holds the sequence of lights (colors) are. It just really doesn't make sense to me.
What my code is supposed to do is append a random number from 1-4 onto colors[] and then read them back out onto the serial monitor
bool lightValue[4] = { 0 };
// stores whether each LED is lit or not
int buttonPressed;
// 0 - no button pressed / nothing
// 1 - red
// 2 - yellow
// 3 - green
// 4 - blue
int colors[] = { 0 };
// probably not the best name for this variable but oh well
// stores all the colors displayed for the simon says
// refer above to see what each number means
int colorNum = 0;
// again not the best name, stores the number of colors displayed so far
// AKA the length of colors[]
int randomNum;
// will store a random number
// variables
void setup() {
randomSeed(analogRead(0));
Serial.begin(9600);
Serial.println();
Serial.println("PROGRAM START");
}
// pinModes. Lots of pinModes.
void loop() {
randomNum = random(1,5);
colors[colorNum] = randomNum;
Serial.println();
Serial.print(colorNum);
Serial.print(" ");
colorNum++;
// adds another random color onto the end of the color sequence
for (int i = 0; i < colorNum; i++) {
Serial.print(colors[i]);
delay(500);
}
}
Some examples of outputs I got:
0 3
0 1
2 13520
3 145202
4 1552024
5 16520241
6 175202414
7 1852024141
8 19520241414
9 1105202414141
10 11152024141414
0 1
2 13520
3 145202
4 1552024
5 16520241
6 175202414
7 1852024141
8 19520241414
9 1105202414141
10 11152024141414
colorNum, the main increment of this loop for some reason skips over one. The first and second output do not match, the third item in the array is 520, and for some reason, the second item is incrementing by 1 every step. Also, it stops at 10 for some reason.
The only thing I could chalk this inconsistent behavior to is accessing some piece of memory where it shouldn't, but I can't come up for the life of me where I horribly messed up.

Answer 1

int colors[] = { 0 };
defines an integer array with a single element 0.
Here colors[colorNum] = randomNum; you're assigning numbers to indices outside of that array for colorNum > 0. You shouldn't do that. This memory region is not reserved for colors!
So who stops your compiler from storing colorNum right after colors?
So when you assing a value to colors[1] you could very well change the value of colorNum. Same for your loop control variable i.
So the second value is incremented because you're incrementing colorNum which is at the same memory location as colorNum[1].
The print for colorNum == 1 is missing because you assigned 5 to colors[2] which is at the same memory location as your loop control variable i. As 5 > colorNum the loop does not run.
I just did this on a 32bit C++ compiler:
int colors[] = {0};
int colorNum = 0;
int i = 0;
And the addresses printed:
colors[0] # 0x7fff029a5ac4
colorNum # 0x7fff029a5ac8
colors[1] # 0x7fff029a5ac8
i # 0x7fff029a5acc
colors[2] # 0x7fff029a5acc
Note that colorNum is just 4 bytes after colors[0] which is the same address as colors[1]!
Anyway you shouldn't just fill memory in an infinite loop in the first place.
You're on a micro controller where memory is a limited resource