Communication issue printing from Arduino to Qt using QSerialPort - qt

I am having problems communicating FROM the arduino to my Qt application through QSerialPort. I have a listening signal that tells me when there is data ready to be read from the arduino. I expect a value for the number of steps that a stepper motor has undertaken before hitting a limit switch, so only a simple int such as "2005". When the data is available for reading, sometimes I get two separate reads with "200" and "5". Obviously this messes things up when I am parsing the data because it records it as two numbers, both much smaller than the intended number.
How can I fix this without me putting in a Sleep or QTimer to allow for a bit more time for the data to come in from the arduino? Note: my program is not multithreaded.
Example Qt code:
//Get the data from serial, and let MainWindow know it's ready to be collected.
QByteArray direct = arduino->readAll();
data = QString(direct);
emit dataReady();
return 0;
Arduino:
int count = 2005;
Serial.print(count);

You can add line break to synchronize.
Example Qt code:
//Get the data from serial, and let MainWindow know it's ready to be collected.
QByteArray direct = arduino->readLine();
data = QString(direct);
emit dataReady();
return 0;
Arduino:
int count = 2005;
Serial.print(count);
Serial.println();
If you are going to use QSerialPort::readyRead signal, you need to also use the QSerialPort::canReadLine function, see this.

Thank you for your help Arpegius. The println() function was definitely a good choice to use for the newline delimiter. And following that link, I was able to get a listening function that got everything the arduino sent as seperate strings. The extra if statements in the loop handle any cases where the incoming string does not contain the newline character (I am paranoid :D)
My code for anyone that has the same problem in the future.
int control::read()
{
QString characters;
//Get the data from serial, and let MainWindow know it's ready to be collected.
while(arduino->canReadLine())
{
//String for data to go.
bool parsedCorrectly = 0;
//characters = "";
//Loop until we find the newline delimiter.
do
{
//Get the line.
QByteArray direct = arduino->readLine();//Line();
//If we have found a new line character in any line, complete the parse.
if(QString(direct).contains('\n'))
{
if(QString(direct) != "\n")
{
characters += QString(direct);
characters.remove(QRegExp("[\\n\\t\\r]"));
parsedCorrectly = 1;
}
}
//If we don't find the newline straight away, add the string we got to the characters QString and keep going.
else
characters += QString(direct);
}while(!parsedCorrectly);
//Save characters to data and emit signal to collect it.
data = characters;
emit dataReady();
//Reset characters!
characters = "";
}
return 0;
}

Related

Arduino - sending large amount of data over Serial

I am trying to build a simple FLASH memory programmer (for 39SF020A) using my arduino mega. I wrote the C code and Python script to send the data over (And it all works as expected).
I need to transfer about 32k of hexadecimal data, but with my settings only 10k of data took about 4 minutes (115200 BAUD), which i found unnecessary long. Currently, i am sending over serial (from Python) my value with a terminator (i chose '$'), so for exmple '3F$'. adresses are calulated on the arduino, so no need to send them.
In my arduino code, i have
String received_string = Serial.readStringUntil('$');
and after programming every byte to teh FLASH using arduino, it sends back a '\n' to let the Python know, that it is ready to receive next byte (the python is waiting for receiving a 'line' and then continues). I am not really sure if this is a way to do it, if sending only one byte at the time is good idea and if not, how many and how do i parse them on the arduino? Is the feedback loop useful?
Thanks.
Python Code:
('file' contains all data)
for item in file[1:]:
ser.write((item + "$").encode("ascii"))
line = ser.readline()
i += 1
if i >= top:
break
elif (i % 100) == 0:
print(i)
Arduino code (just part of it)
if (Serial.available() > 0){
String received_string = Serial.readStringUntil('$');
programData(received_string.toInt(),program_adress);
program_adress++;
}
void programData(char data_in, unsigned long adress)
{
digitalWrite(OE,HIGH);
digitalWrite(CE,LOW);
writeByte(0xAA, 0x5555);
writeByte(0x55, 0x2AAA);
writeByte(0xA0, 0x5555);
writeByte(data_in, adress);
Serial.print("\n"); // Feedback for Python
delayMicroseconds(30); // Just to be on the safe side
}
void writeByte(char data_in, unsigned long adress)
{
setDataAs(OUTPUT);
digitalWrite(OE,HIGH);
digitalWrite(WE,HIGH);
setAdress(adress);
setData(data_in);
digitalWrite(WE,LOW);
delayMicroseconds(1);
digitalWrite(WE,HIGH);
}
// Sets data BUS to input or output
void setDataAs(char dir){
for (unsigned int i = 0; i < data_size ;i++) pinMode(data[i],dir);
}
// Sets data to specific values
void setData(char data_i){
setDataAs(OUTPUT);
for (int i = 0; i < data_size;i++) { digitalWrite(data[i],bitRead(data_i,i)); }
}
void setAdress(long adr){
// Set all adresses
for (int i = 0; i < adresses_size;i++)
digitalWrite(adresses[i],bitRead(adr,i));
}

Arduino: while (Serial.available()==0) gives input

I am trying to input GPS coordinate into the serial monitor to use in my drone project
However, whenever I try to input GPS coordinate, it automatically writes one of the GPS coordinates without my input. For example, GPS latitude is shown as 0.00, but the program waits for GPS Longitude info.
For a detailed situation please look at the picture attached.
int GPSNumCor;
void setup() {
// put your setup code here, to run once:
Serial.begin (115200);
Serial.print("What is the number of your GPS Coordinate? ");
while (Serial.available() == 0);
GPSNumCor = Serial.parseInt();
Serial.println(GPSNumCor);
delay (200);
float GPSLat[GPSNumCor], GPSLon[GPSNumCor];
for (int i = 0; i < GPSNumCor; i++)
{
if (i == 0)
{
Serial.println("What is your 1st GPS Coordinate");
}
if (i == 1)
{
Serial.println("What is your 2nd GPS Coordinate");
}
if (i == 2)
{
Serial.println("What is your 3rd GPS Coordinate");
}
if (i > 2)
{
Serial.print("What is your ");
Serial.print(i + 1);
Serial.println(" th GPS Coordinate");
}
delay(200);
Serial.print ("Latitude: ");
while (Serial.available() == 0);
GPSLat[i] = Serial.parseFloat();
Serial.println(GPSLat[i]);
Serial.print("Longitude: ");
while (Serial.available() == 0);
GPSLon[i] = Serial.parseFloat();
Serial.println(GPSLon[i]);
}
}
It has to wait for all input until I make an input to the program, but it does not wait.
I know while (Serial.available()==0) is a way to go, but I do not know why it would not work.
First, there's no reason to use while (Serial.available() == 0);. The parseFloat function you are about to use waits for data to be available and, if it didn't, merely checking for zero wouldn't be sufficient anyway because that would stop waiting as soon as a single character was available.
So here's why that while loop is a bad idea:
If you really do need to wait for the input before calling parseFloat, this won't do it. It only waits until at least one character is received and the coordinates may be more than one character.
The parseFloat function doesn't return until it has read an entire float anyway. So it already waits for you.
But that's not your problem. Think about the input stream, say it's "11.0<newline>22.0newline44.0". Where is the code to read the spaces between those numbers? When parseFloat tries to read a space, it returns a zero, as the documentation says. That's why you're getting zeroes -- you don't have any code to do anything with the separators between the floats.
Think about how parseFloat must work when it reads "12.34newline". First it reads the 1 and has no idea whether that's the whole number of not, so it keeps checking. Then it reads the "2.34" and still has no idea it has the whole number. Not until it sees the newline does it know that 12.34 is the correct float to return. But it does not consume the newline. Why? Because that might mean something.
With the code you showed, your next call to parseFloat will then try to read the newline and see that this is not a valid character to be part of a floating point number. So, as the documentation says, it will return zero.
Look closely at parseFloat's documentation to find out how to correctly match the delimiters in your serial stream. The parseFloat function has the ability to behave differently, consuming and ignoring delimeters rather than returning zero.
I don't know how it work, I just add Serial.read() in every time I want to read.
If u don't want to add Serial.read(), u can also use old version like 1.6.0, it still work fine but it don't work when u make like C# Serial app.
Just add Serial.read(), it work fine every place.
void setup() {
// put your setup code here, to run once:
Serial.begin(9600);
}
void loop() {
// put your main code here, to run repeatedly:
while(Serial.available()==0){}
int r=Serial.parseInt();
Serial.println(r);
Serial.read(); // it work fine
while(Serial.available()==0){}
int g=Serial.parseInt();
Serial.println(g);
Serial.read();
}
In the Serial Monitor window, in the drop-down menu on the bottom-right, change from "Newline" to "No line ending" and that will solve the problem (by preventing the Serial Monitor from automatically entering zero value(s)).
Both the parseInt() and parseFloat() have a hard time reading other data types (this also includes white spaces such as new lines) than the ones specified, and as a result they automatically return zero.
Reference: This page on Programming electronics offers valuable, detailed explanations (look for a paragraph with bold text):
https://www.programmingelectronics.com/parseint/

Qt to Arduino Serial port communication and parsing

I am trying to create a software lighting desk by using Qt and Arduino with a DMX Shield. I've been able to establish communication between these two and can send commands over to Arduino Mega (at the moment the communication goes only one way). I am periodically (every 200 ms) sending values of 11 faders to Mega as a String.
eg.: A123 B234 C050 ... J222 M255
The values in the string above are variables based on the position of the sliders and should be used to adjust the values of light intensities saved into each fader on the Mega side. The Letters in each section identify corresponding fader. A = fader1, B = fader2, ... Just for clarity: I can bring up a light/s at a specific intensity -> these intensities are then assigned to a fader and when that fader is moved I want these values to adjust and be sent out to the actual lights/dimmers. The calculations work fine but my Mega would eventually become unresponsive.
I think my problem is parsing the incoming string. I have tried the strtok() method and readStringUntil() to no avail. It is also difficult to monitor the incoming strings in Serial Monitor as this is used for the communication with Qt.
Would be happy for any kind of help. Please ask questions if anything is unclear.
Edit:
This is one of my attempts at solutions
const char delim[2] = " ";
char *token;
if(Serial.available())
{
//incomingMessage = Serial.readString();
incomingMessage = Serial.readStringUntil("\n"); // read the whole string until newline
//Serial.println(incomingMessage);
const char* str = incomingMessage.c_str(); // convert it to a C String terminated by a null character "\0"
//Serial.println(str);
token = strtok(str, delim); // first part is a first section until delimiter occurs "-space- "
//Serial.println(token);
LX_Rated.commandLineResolve(token); // resolve it
while( token != NULL ) { // continue splitting and resolving the incoming message until it reaches the end
token = strtok(NULL, delim);
LX_Rated.commandLineResolve(token);
}
}
Edit2:
I have confirmed that I receive the whole string sent by Qt. When I try to tokenise it using the strtok() function and print out the first token I get back the whole string, the other tokens are empty. I don't see any mistake in my code here. I even tried to slow down the sending of the string from Qt to one per 5 sec. Does anybody have any idea what is going on? I don't see why this standard function doesn't work as expected. Please see the amended code below.
if(Serial.available()) {
incomingMessage = Serial.readStringUntil("\n");
Serial.println("ok");
Serial.flush();
char* nullTerminatedIncomingMessage = incomingMessage.c_str();
const char delimiter = " ";
char* token;
char* token1;
char* token2;
//char* secondToken;
token = strtok(nullTerminatedIncomingMessage, delimiter);
token1 = strtok(NULL, delimiter);
token2 = strtok(NULL, delimiter);
Serial.println(token); // print the first section
//Serial.println(incomingMessage);
Serial.flush();
Serial.println(token1);
Serial.flush();
Serial.println(token2);
Serial.flush();
//while(token != NULL)
// secondToken = strtok(NULL, delimiter);
//Serial.println(secondToken);
//Serial.flush();
incomingMessage = "";
}
Your mistake - at the very least - is in assuming that all the input is available when you expect it. You need to defer processing until an entire line has been assembled. Serial.readStringUntil blocks until an entire line is available, and that's not what you expect. You essentially need to replace Serial.available() with Serial.lineAvailable(), except the latter is not implemented.
This answer contains a complete solution to your issue - including both Qt and Arduino code - and an Arudino emulation layer. It might be a good starting point, especially that you can easily co-debug both Qt and Arduino projects from within one application and using one debugger!
As for difficulty in monitoring communication, you can(in Qt) dump everything you read into console and do the same for everything you write into the serial port. It will show in the console tab of QtCreator
#include <QDebug>
...
qDebug() << "whatever" << endl;
Aso for parsing the data you read from to serial port, take a look at this to see how to easily split the sliders info into individual strings(with QRegExp)
How Can I Split a String According To Delimiters in Qt?
I can't possibly guess why your arduino would be unresponsive without the code.
EDIT:
Is it possible, when you generate the string in Qt, that you separate the tokens by something other than space? Maybe tab("\t") or something? strtok accepts multiple delimiters in the delimiter string, may be something to try.
If that is not the case, there is the unlikely possibility that something's wrong with the strtok(...) function(btw. it modifies the original string, that in itself could be a problem). Also, strtok could return a NULL pointer, you don't seem to handle that case(some wrong input - print a message). You could try this as an alternative to normal strtok:
/**
* #brief custom strtok replacement with the same interface
* It does not modify the original string
* Token length is limited to 63 characters
* #param ptr pointer to the string or NULL
* #param delim delimiting character(only the first character will be used)
*/
const char * my_strtok(const char * ptr, const char * delim) {
// Persistent variables, it will remember pointer to the processed string
static const char * src;
static char buffer[64]; // Token is limited to 63 characters
if(ptr) { // Remember the pointer, if a new one was supplied
src = ptr;
}
if(src == NULL || *src == '\0')// Invalid / empty string / no next token - return NULL
return NULL;
char i = 0;
for(i = 0; i < 63 && *src != delim[0]; i++) {// Copy token until delimiter or end of buffer
buffer[i] = *(src++);
}
if(*src == delim[0]) // Skip over the delimiter to the begining of the next token
++src;
buffer[i] = '\0'; // Any returned string must be terminated
return buffer;
}
#include <cstdlib>
#include <cstring>
#include <cassert>
void test() {
const char * str1 = "123 456 asdf jkl;";
assert(strcmp("123", my_strtok(str1, " ")) == 0);
assert(strcmp("456", my_strtok(NULL, " ")) == 0);
assert(strcmp("asdf", my_strtok(NULL, " ")) == 0);
assert(strcmp("jkl;", my_strtok(NULL, " ")) == 0);
assert(NULL == my_strtok(NULL, " "));
assert(NULL == my_strtok(NULL, " "));
assert(strcmp("123", my_strtok(str1, " ")) == 0);
}

My Qt app does not recieve all the data sent by arduino

I'll go right to the point. My arduino reads values from the adc port and send them via serial port(values from 0 to 255). I save them in a byte type vector. After sending an specific signal to arduino, it starts to send to Qt app the data saved in the vector. Everything is working except that the arduino should send 800 values and the app receives less values than that. If I set the serial baud rate to 9600, I get 220 values. If, instead, I set the baud rate to 115200, I get only 20 values. Can you guys help me to fix this? I would like to use 115200 baud rate, because I need a good trasmision speed at this project(Real time linear CCD). I'll leave some code below:
Arduino code:
void sendData(void)
{
int x;
for (x = 0; x < 800; ++x)
{
Serial.print(buffer[x]);
}
}
This is the function that sends the values. I think is enough information, so I summarized it. If you need more code, please let me know.
Qt serial port setting code:
...
// QDialog windows private variables and constants
QSerialPort serial;
QSerialPortInfo serialInfo;
QList<QSerialPortInfo> listaPuertos;
bool estadoPuerto;
bool dataAvailable;
const QSerialPort::BaudRate BAUDRATE = QSerialPort::Baud9600;
const QSerialPort::DataBits DATABITS = QSerialPort::Data8;
const QSerialPort::Parity PARITY = QSerialPort::NoParity;
const QSerialPort::StopBits STOPBITS = QSerialPort::OneStop;
const QSerialPort::FlowControl FLOWCONTROL = QSerialPort::NoFlowControl;
const int pixels = 800;
QVector<double> data;
unsigned int dataIndex;
QByteArray values;
double maximo;
...
// Signal and slot connection.
QObject::connect(&serial, SIGNAL(readyRead()), this,SLOT(fillDataBuffer()));
...
// Method called when there's data available to read at the serial port.
void Ventana::fillDataBuffer()
{
dataIndex++;
data.append(QString::fromStdString(serial.readAll().toStdString()).toDouble());
if(data.at(dataIndex-1) > maximo) maximo = data.at(dataIndex-1);
/* The following qDebug is the one I use to test the recieved values,
* where I check that values. */
qDebug() << data.at(dataIndex-1);
}
Thanks and sorry if it's not so clear, it has been an exhausting day :P
Ok... I see two probelms here:
Arduino side: you send your data in a decimal form (so x = 100 will be sent as 3 characters - 1, 0 and 0. You have no delimiter between your data, so how your receiver will know that it received value 100 not three values 1, 0 and 0? Please see my answer here for further explanation on how to send ADC data from Arduino.
QT side: There is no guarantee on the moment when readyRead() signal will be triggered. It may be immediately after first sample arrives, but it may be raised after there are already couple of samples inside the serial port buffer. If that happens, your method fillDataBuffer() may process string 12303402 instead of four separate strings 123, 0, 340 and 2, because between two buffer reads four samples arrived. The bigger the baudrate, the more samples will arrive between the reads, which is why you observe less values with a bigger baud rate.
Solution for both of your problems is to append some delimiting byte for your data, and split the string in the buffer on that delimiting byte. If you don't want to have maximum data throughput, you can just do
Serial.print(buffer[x]);
Serial.print('\n');
and then, split incoming string on \n character.
Thank you very much! I did what you said about my arduino program and after solving that, I was still not getting the entire amount of data. So the the problem was in Qt. How you perfectly explain, the serial buffer was accumulating the values too fast, so the slot function "fillDataBuffer()" was too slow to process the arriving data. I simplified that function:
void Ventana::fillDataBuffer()
{
dataIndex++;
buffer.append(serial.readAll());
}
After saving all the values in the QByteArray buffer, I process the data separately.
Thanks again man. Your answer was really helpful.

How to open a file in Qt-method but read it use C-language function?

I know Qt has a lot of good methods for reading file.But in my work , I have to open a file by using Qt and get a pointer pointing to the start address of the file.So how to do that?
Here is my codes:
char *buffer;
if(file.open(QIODevice::ReadOnly))
{
QByteArray dataArray=file.readAll();
buffer=dataArray.data();
}
char test[1024];
for(int i=0;i<1024;i++)
{
test[i]=*buffer;
buffer++;
}
I use QByteArray QIODevice::​readAll()to read all available data from the device, and returns it as a byte array.
Then I use char * QByteArray::​data() to set my pointer buffer.
But when I try to read the data by a for loop,my Qt debugger throw me an error:read access violation,so how would this happen?
BTW , the file to be read is very big so I can't use a buffer to read them all once. Instead , I have to do as what I did here. When I read a 7kb-sizes-file ,my codes runs well. When I read a 700kb-sizes-file , here comes the problem.
The reason you are getting access violation is that dataArray is declared inside if code block and goes out of scope. You want to declare the dataArray outside of that block, eg:
QByteArray dataArray;
if(file.open(QIODevice::ReadOnly))
{
dataArray = file.readAll();
}
else
{
// give error
}
char *buffer = dataArray.data();
char test[1024];
for(int i = 0; i < 1024; i++)
{
test[i] = *buffer;
buffer++;
}
There are other potential problems in your code though:
First, what if the size of data read from the file is less than 1024? Then you will be reading past the end of the buffer (more access violations).
Second, what if the file is really big? Reading all that data at once may cause swapping/paging.

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