Basic Arduino serial communication - arduino

Question

I'm just trying to get the very basics of serial communication started; I'm trying to use this example I found, from what I understand it should be working. I just want what I type into the serial monitor to be output back, so I can see how it works. I also tried removing the while serial.available in case the serial monitor doesn't trigger that condition.
Here is my code:
// Buffer to store incoming commands from serial port
String inData;
void setup() {
Serial.begin(9600);
Serial.println("Initialized\n");
}
void loop() {
while (Serial.available() > 0)
{
char received = Serial.read();
inData += received;
// Process message when new line character is received
if (received == '\n')
{
Serial.println("Arduino Received: ");
Serial.println(inData);
inData = ""; // Clear received buffer
}
}
}
It currently uploads fine, and prints "initialized", but it doesn't work if I try to "send" any data.

Answer 1

Serial.read() returns an int.
You need to cast to (char) in order to store it as a char.
char received = (char)Serial.read();
Maybe you are never receiving any data for some reason.
Let's try something super simple. Use serialEvent() as suggested by sohnryang and then print some text as soon as Serial.available() triggers:
while (Serial.available() > 0) {
Serial.println("Something has been received");
}
You should see this message every time you send something to Arduino.

Answer 2

Use SerialEvent. So the code will look like this.
String inData;
void setup() {
Serial.begin(9600);
Serial.println("Initialized\n");
}
void loop() {
}
void serialEvent() {
while (Serial.available()) {
char inChar = (char)Serial.read();
inData += inChar;
if (inChar == '\n') {
Serial.println("Arduino Recieved : ");
Serial.println("inData");
inData = "";
}
}
}