I'm going to write 5 bytes of data to a COM port and expect to receive 11 with the last byte of 0xFF to receive. I store the receiving bytes in pantilt_value variable.
This is a code which works:
(I receive the 11 bytes as expected with the last byte of 0xFF)
_port->write(data_pantilt, 5);
QByteArray pantilt_value = _port->readAll();
while (_port->waitForReadyRead(100))
pantilt_value.append(_port->readAll());
This is a code which doesn't work:
(I receive just a first 2 bytes)
_port->write(data_pantilt, 5);
char d;
QByteArray pantilt_value;
while (_port->waitForReadyRead(100)){
_port->read(&d,1);
pantilt_value.append(d);
if (d == 0xff)
break;
}
Can you explain why the second code doesn't work.
waitForReadyRead() returns true only when there is new data available. In your second case, the while loop has time to execute twice before all data is received. Use QSerialPort::bytesAvailable to see how much data there is to be read.
It seems that, The first time you call waitForReadyRead() to check if there is a data on serial port to read, it returns true, but you should read the whole data on the serial port after you call that method because if you fail to read the whole data after calling waitForReadyRead(), next time you call that method, it returns false, although there is still some data left to read from the port.
So my second code should be changed to something like this:
_port->write(data_pantilt, 5);
char d;
QByteArray pantilt_value;
while(_port->waitForReadyRead(100)){
while (_port->bytesAvailable() > 0){
_port->read(&d,1);
pantilt_value.append(d);
if (d == 0xff)
break;
}
}
Related
I'm constantly sending structs of int64 via Pyserial with:
with serial.Serial(port='COM4', baudrate=115200, timeout=.1) as arduino:
value = write_read(struct.pack(">q", int_array[1][i])) #this sends signed int.64 in bytes
print(value)
the struct.pack has this shape, for example:
b'\xff\xff\xff\xff\xff\xff\xff\xef'
and the function write_read consists of:
def write_read(x):
arduino.write((x))
data = arduino.readline()
#the idea is to receive an ACK from the Arduino after 8 bytes (the full
#number)
return data
The code I'm trying to develop in arduino is the following:
void loop() {
// send data only when you receive data:
if (Serial.available() \> 0) {
// read the incoming byte:
incomingByte = Serial.read();
//read 8 bytes and create the result
r= function_to_read_8_last_bytes // or similar
// say what you got:
Serial.print("I received: ");
Serial.printlesultn(r, DEC);
Serial.write("ACK");
}
}
I'm very curious how I could do a robust "read 8 bytes" function.
Should I add some especial character in the Python part to indentify when it ends one value?
Thanks! I'll appreciate any help :)
Given the discussion in the comments, it's hard to receive a stream of bytes and be sure that the receiver is completely synchronized. However let's make some assumptions to ease the problem:
The serial buffer is empty when you connect your laptop to Arduino. This ensures you won't receive spurious data with no meaning. I had this problem happens a lot when the serial connection was ended abruptly by any cause.
You are not constantly sending bytes, Arduino has time to process them until the start of the new sequence.
You only send this data, so there is no need to create a higher level protocol on top of it. Bare in mind that the serial communication is almost just an hardware stack, you receive bytes with no headers.
For assumption 1 you can write a simple piece of code to consume all the spurious bytes in the serial buffer as soon as your main starts from Arudino, so this will be done everytime you connect the serial (as this is also where the power supply comes from). Something like this:
void serialFlush(){
while(Serial.available() > 0) {
char t = Serial.read();
}
}
You can send a "READY" signal back to the Python interface, so that the program knows you are ready to receive data.
Going on with the solution you can implement an easy CRC in python, an additional byte which contains a XOR of all the previous bytes, and you check that in Arduino upon reception complete.
def xor_reduce_long_int(li):
res = 0;
for i in range(8):
mask = (0xFF)<<(i*8)
print(hex(mask))
masked = (li&mask)>>(i*8)
res ^= masked
return res
with serial.Serial(port='COM4', baudrate=115200, timeout=.1) as arduino:
crc=xor_reduce_long_int(int_array[1][i])
value = write_read(struct.pack(">qc", int_array[1][i],crc)) #this sends signed int.64 in bytes
print(value)
And with Arduino I would read 8 bytes when they are available and put them into an unsigned char buffer. I would then define a union that alias such buffer to interpret it as long long int.
typedef struct long_int_CRC
{
union
{
unsigned char bytes[8];
long int data;
};
unsigned char CRC;
}data_T;
// .. Later in main
data_T = received_data;
int received_bytes=0
unsigned char my_CRC = 0;
unsigned char rec_byte= 0;
while( received_bytes < 8 )
{
if(Serial.available() )
{
// Get the byte
rec_byte = Serial.read()
// Store the byte and calc CRC
received_data.bytes[received_bytes] = rec_byte;
my_CRC ^= rec_byte;
// Increment counter for next byte
received_bytes++;
}
}
// Reception complete, check CRC
unsigned char rec_CRC;
if(Serial.available() )
{
rec_CRC = Serial.read()
}
if( my_CRC != rec_CRC )
{
// Something was wrong!
}
// Now access your data as a long int
Serial.print("I received: ");
Serial.printlesultn(received_data.data, DEC);
Serial.write("ACK");
I am trying to read some integers from serial, so I used Serial.parseInt() to read two values(0 or 1), the thing is the code runs perfectly for the first time, but then the serial start reading the value 0 on its own, without me sending anything, here is part of the code I am using:
while (!Serial.available()) {}
A = Serial.parseInt();
Serial.println(A);
if (A == 1) {
Book = "";
Serial.println("add tag");
while (Book == "") {
delay(2000);
Book = tagB();
}
Serial.println(Book);
sendToE1("", Book);
delay(2000);
}
}
}
Serial.parseInt returns 0 when it times out with none or invalid characters received.
As you're loop is waiting for available data befor you call Serial.parseInt the only explanation is that you're sending something else but numbers. Most likely a linefeed or carriage return from your terminal program or a println function...
You should probably call Serial.peek to check if the next byte is a number befor you call Serial.parseInt. If you know for sure that you did not send anything but that single integer and some non-numeric character you can also clear the input buffer befor parsing a possible next integer.
But if you're sending an integer and a termination character you might as well just not use Serial.parseInt. Read your data into an array until you receive the termination character. Then convert your data to an integer yourself.
Using Serial.parseInt only makes sense if you know you're about to receive an integer representation within a certain time interval.
You probably need to set the monitor to "No line ending".
We have two Qt applications. App1 accepts a connection from App2 through QTcpServer and stores it in an instance of QTcpSocket* tcpSocket. App1 runs a simulation with 30 Hz. For each simulation run, a QByteArray consisting of a few kilobytes is sent using the following code (from the main/GUI thread):
QByteArray block;
/* lines omitted which write data into block */
tcpSocket->write(block, block.size());
tcpSocket->waitForBytesWritten(1);
The receiver socket listens to the QTcpSocket::readDataBlock signal (in main/GUI thread) and prints the corresponding time stamp to the GUI.
When both App1 and App2 run on the same system, the packages are perfectly in sync. However when App1 and App2 are run on different systems connected through a network, App2 is no longer in sync with the simulation in App2. The packages come in much slower. Even more surprising (and indicating our implementation is wrong) is the fact that when we stop the simulation loop, no more packages are received. This surprises us, because we expect from the TCP protocol that all packages will arrive eventually.
We built the TCP logic based on Qt's fortune example. The fortune server, however, is different, because it only sends one package per incoming client. Could someone identify what we have done wrong?
Note: we use MSVC2012 (App1), MSVC2010 (App2) and Qt 5.2.
Edit: With a package I mean the result of a single simulation experiment, which is a bunch of numbers, written into QByteArray block. The first bits, however, contain the length of the QByteArray, so that the client can check whether all data has been received. This is the code which is called when the signal QTcpSocket::readDataBlock is emitted:
QDataStream in(tcpSocket);
in.setVersion(QDataStream::Qt_5_2);
if (blockSize == 0) {
if (tcpSocket->bytesAvailable() < (int)sizeof(quint16))
return; // cannot yet read size from data block
in >> blockSize; // read data size for data block
}
// if the whole data block is not yet received, ignore it
if (tcpSocket->bytesAvailable() < blockSize)
return;
// if we get here, the whole object is available to parse
QByteArray object;
in >> object;
blockSize = 0; // reset blockSize for handling the next package
return;
The problem in our implementation was caused by data packages being piled up and incorrect handling of packages which had only arrived partially.
The answer goes in the direction of Tcp packets using QTcpSocket. However this answer could not be applied in a straightforward manner, because we rely on QDataStream instead of plain QByteArray.
The following code (run each time QTcpSocket::readDataBlock is emitted) works for us and shows how a raw series of bytes can be read from QDataStream. Unfortunately it seems that it is not possible to process the data in a clearer way (using operator>>).
QDataStream in(tcpSocket);
in.setVersion(QDataStream::Qt_5_2);
while (tcpSocket->bytesAvailable())
{
if (tcpSocket->bytesAvailable() < (int)(sizeof(quint16) + sizeof(quint8)+ sizeof(quint32)))
return; // cannot yet read size and type info from data block
in >> blockSize;
in >> dataType;
char* temp = new char[4]; // read and ignore quint32 value for serialization of QByteArray in QDataStream
int bufferSize = in.readRawData(temp, 4);
delete temp;
temp = NULL;
QByteArray buffer;
int objectSize = blockSize - (sizeof(quint16) + sizeof(quint8)+ sizeof(quint32));
temp = new char[objectSize];
bufferSize = in.readRawData(temp, objectSize);
buffer.append(temp, bufferSize);
delete temp;
temp = NULL;
if (buffer.size() == objectSize)
{
//ready for parsing
}
else if (buffer.size() > objectSize)
{
//buffer size larger than expected object size, but still ready for parsing
}
else
{
// buffer size smaller than expected object size
while (buffer.size() < objectSize)
{
tcpSocket->waitForReadyRead();
char* temp = new char[objectSize - buffer.size()];
int bufferSize = in.readRawData(temp, objectSize - buffer.size());
buffer.append(temp, bufferSize);
delete temp;
temp = NULL;
}
// now ready for parsing
}
if (dataType == 0)
{
// deserialize object
}
}
Please not that the first three bytes of the expected QDataStream are part of our own procotol: blockSize indicates the number of bytes for a complete single package, dataType helps deserializing the binary chunk.
Edit
For reducing the latency of sending objects through the TCP connection, disabling packet bunching was very usefull:
// disable Nagle's algorithm to avoid delay and bunching of small packages
tcpSocketPosData->setSocketOption(QAbstractSocket::LowDelayOption,1);
I want to parse two integers that are sent from one arduino to another. The integers can be between 1 and 3 digits and they can be the same but still I must be able to tell which one is which.
Tried to search the already answerd questions regarding this but cannot find any good answear.
I have tried with this on the reciever (I print the inputstring2 on a LCD screen where I also reset the Inputstring2):
if(incomingByte == 'b'){
incomingByte = Serial.read();
while(incomingByte >= '0' && incomingByte <= '9'){
inputString2 += incomingByte;
incomingByte = Serial.read();
}
stringComplete2= true;//
The error is that I sometimes get only one of the digits if the integer is 25 I only get 2...
Sender:
Serial1.print('a');
Serial1.print(temp2);
Serial1.print('b');
Serial1.print(encoderValue);
Serial1.print('n');
When you send the value, also send a "tail character" to indicate to the receiver that the data characters has no more characters, i.e.:
Serial1.print('a');
Serial1.print(temp2);
Serial1.print('a');
Serial1.print('b');
Serial1.print(encoderValue);
Serial1.print('b');
In this way you enclose the data in a packet (a data a), so on the receiving end you test for the start of the packet, then read the remaining characters until you read the end of the packet.
I'm trying to read variable streams of characters and process them on the Arduino once a certain string of bytes is read on the Arduino. I have a sample sketch like the following, but I can't figure out how to compare the "readString" to process something on the Arduino. I would like the Arduino to process "commands" such as {blink}, {open_valve}, {close_valve}, etc.
// Serial - read bytes into string variable for string
String readString;
// Arduino serial read - example
int incomingByte;
// flow_A LED
int led = 4;
void setup() {
Serial.begin(2400); // Open serial port and set Baud rate to 2400.
Serial.write("Power on test");
}
void loop() {
while (Serial.available()) {
delay(10);
if (Serial.available() > 0) {
char c = Serial.read(); // Gets one byte from serial buffer
readString += c; // Makes the string readString
}
}
if (readString.length() > 0) {
Serial.println( readString); // See what was received
}
if (readString == '{blink_Flow_A}') {
digitalWrite(led, HIGH); // Turn the LED on (HIGH is the voltage level).
delay(1000); // Wait for one second.
digitalWrite(led, LOW); // Turn the LED off by making the voltage LOW.
delay(1000); // Wait for a second.
}
Some definitions first:
SOP = Start Of Packet (in your case, an opening brace)
EOP = End Of Packet (in your case, a closing brace)
PAYLOAD = the characters between SOP and EOP
PACKET = SOP + PAYLOAD + EOP
Example:
PACKET= {Abc}
SOP = {
EOP = }
PAYLOAD = Abc
Your code should process one character at a time, and should be structured as a state machine.
When the code starts, the parser state is "I'm waiting for the SOP character". While in this state, you throw away every character you receive unless it's equal to SOP.
When you find you received a SOP char, you change the parser state to "I'm receiving the payload". You store every character from now on into a buffer, until you either see an EOP character or exhaust the buffer (more on this in a moment). If you see the EOP char, you "close" the buffer by appending a NULL character (i.e. 0x00) so that it becomes a standard NULL-terminated C-string, and you can work on it with the standard functions (strcmp, strstr, strchr, etc.).
At this point you pass the buffer to a "process()" function, which executes the operation specified by the payload (1)
You have to specify the maximum length of a packet, and size the receive buffer accordingly. You also have to keep track of the current payload length during the "payload receive" state, so you don't accidentally try to store more payload bytes into the temporary buffer than it can hold (otherwise you get memory corruption).
If you fill the receive buffer without seeing an EOP character, then that packet is either malformed (too long) or a transmission error changed the EOP character into something else. In either case you should discard the buffer contents and go back to "Waiting for SOP" state.
Depending on the protocol design, you could send an error code to the PC so the person typing at the terminal or the software on that side knows the last command it sent was invalid or not received correctly.
Finally, the blink code in you snipped should be replaced by non-blocking "blink-without-delay"-style code (look at the example that come with the Arduino IDE).
(1) Example of a "process" function:
void process(char* cmd) {
if (strcmp(cmd, "open_valve") == 0) {
open_valve();
}
else if (strcmp(cmd, "close_valve") == 0) {
close_valve();
}
else {
print_error("Unrecognized command.");
}
}
It seems you are comparing the string in this statement:
if( readString == '{blink_Flow_A}' )
So I don't get your question re :
but I can't figure out how to compare the "readString" to process something
Are you really asking:
How do I extract the commands from an incoming stream of characters?
If that is the case then treat each command as a "packet". The packet is enclosed in brackets: {}. Knowing that the {} brackets are start and end of a packet, it is easy to write a routine to get at the command in the packet.
Once the command is extracted just go through a if-then-else statement to do what each command is supposed to do.
If I totally misunderstood your question I apologize :)
EDIT:
see http://arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/StringComparisonOperators
if( readString == "{blink_Flow_A}" ) should be correct syntax.
Since you have a statement
Serial.println( readString);
you should see the string received.