Serial Terminals and String Manipulation

CumQuaT

Hi all,

Looking around the OBEX, I can see a number of fun looking data manipulation objects, but nothing PRECISELY like what I'm after (but please prove me wrong if I am, since it will help)

I have 4 long variables that I am transmitting back to my PC from my propellor, and I can submit each one back to the PC individually with no problems. However, what I would like to do is send them all back at once in a single long string, separated by colons.

So, instead of sending back data that looks like this:

532
634
12
1022

I would send back a single string that looks like this:

532:634:12:1022

Also, for a bonus question... I would like to add a mask to my numbers so that they always get returned back as 4 digit numbers, filling in the gaps with extra zeros, like so:

0532:0634:0012:1022

But I can't for the life of me work out a way of doing this... Does anyone have any ideas?

Dr_Acula

Kyedos has some bonus string handling routines that I added to do this sort of thing. They replicate Basic string handling. In Basic syntax. Bear with me with the Basic code because it is pretty easy to then convert to Spin. I'll write this the long way rather than trying to do everything on one line. You can make this a lot shorter if you want, eg by putting things in subroutines

Dim Variable1 as Long
Dim Variable2 as Long
Dim Variable3 as Long
Dim Variable4 as Long
Dim LineOfText as String
Dim TempString as String

Variable1 = 532
Variable2 = 634
Variable3 = 12
Variable4 = 1022
LineofText = ""
TempString = strings.str(Variable1)
TempString = "0000" + TempString
TempString = strings.right(Tempstring,4)
LineofText = LineOfText + Tempstring + ":"
TempString = string.str(Variable2)
TempString = "0000" + TempString
TempString = strings.right(Tempstring,4)
LineofText = LineOfText + Tempstring + ":"
TempString = string.str(Variable3)
TempString = "0000" + TempString
TempString = strings.right(Tempstring,4)
LineofText = LineOfText + Tempstring + ":"
TempString = string.str(Variable4)
TempString = "0000" + TempString
TempString = strings.right(Tempstring,4)
LineofText = LineOfText + Tempstring
' and now send out 

Attached is Kyedos, and the bit you want is the string handler ASCII0_STREngine.spin Down the bottom are some of the Basic type string methods.

To use these, create some string space in the main program. Kyedos itself has this in its main program, but to summarise the important bits

OBJ
  str: "ASCII0_STREngine.spin"

and

VAR
   byte TempString[80] ' temporary string buffer
   byte LineOfText1[80] ' general purpose string buffer

String handling is still not quite as simple as in Basic, eg joining two strings is a function in the string handler rather than just using +

This is a summary of some of the routines I used to test out these strings

' ***************************************************************************************
      'printstring(@lineoftext1)                         ' testing string functions
      'str.left(@lineoftext1,@lineoftext2,3)  ' find leftmost characters in a string
      'printstring(@lineoftext2)
      'str.trimstring(@lineoftext1)
      'printstring(@lineoftext1)
      'str.trimstring(@lineoftext1)
      'str.mid(@lineoftext1,@lineoftext2,4,2) ' find middle characters in a string
      'printstring(@lineoftext2)
      'printstring(str.integertodecimal(str.len(@lineoftext2),5))
      'str.copy(string("hello"),@lineoftext1) ' copy fixed value into a string
      'printstring(@lineoftext1)
      'str.str(@lineoftext1,55) ' decimal to string with no leading zeros
      'printstring(@lineoftext1)
      'str.stringfill(@lineoftext1,10,65)
      'printstring(@lineoftext1)
      'str.str(@lineoftext1,1234)' convert to string
      'str.str(@lineoftext1,str.decimaltointeger(@lineoftext1)) ' convert back
      'printstring(@lineoftext1)
      ' str.left(@lineoftext1,@lineoftext2,str.len(@lineoftext1)-4) ' remove extension
      ' printstring(@lineoftext2) ' print it out

Most of the bits you need are in there, eg str.str (which is the same as strings.str).

The catch is that strings.right has not been written (yet). But you can replicate this in other ways that might be neater anyway. Instead of adding 4 zeros, then taking the right most 4 characters, first, convert your number to a string, then get the length of the string. (str.len) Subtract this number from 4, and add that many zeros using a loop and str.StringConcatenate

Full zip of Kyedos is attached but you will only be needing the strings object.

If you want to add characters between the numbers, eg a comma or a colon, add those with str.StringConcatenate

You might need to add a str.trim after converting the number to a string as there is a leading (hidden) space for positive numbers.

CumQuaT

You, sir, are a gentleman. I couldn't have asked for a more thorough an informative reply. Thank you very much!

Dave Hein

Or you could use CLIB and just do c.printf4(string("%04d:%04d:04d:%04d"), num1, num2, num3, num4).

CumQuaT

Good golly, Miss Molly. That's a lot more to the point! Thanks!

JonnyMac

Here's another tool for the box -- I use this method in a custom serial driver

pub rjdec(value, width, pad) | divisor, zflag, c

'' Print decimal value in field "width" characters wide
'' -- only works with positive #s
'' -- pad is character for left-side padding

  ||value                                               ' remove sign
  width := 1 #> width <# 9                              ' limit field width
  divisor := 1                                          ' prep initial divisor
  repeat width
    divisor *= 10 
  value //= divisor                                     ' truncate value to fit in field
  zflag := 0                                            ' clear print zero flag

  repeat width
    divisor := (divisor / 10) #> 1                      ' prep divisor  
    c := (value / divisor) + "0"                        ' digit to ASCII
    zflag |= ((c <> "0") | (divisor == 1))              ' update zero flag
    if zflag                                            ' if flag tripped
      tx(c)                                             '   print char
    else                                                ' else
      tx(pad)                                           '   print pad character
    value //= divisor                                   ' prep for next digit

CumQuaT

Very cool, Jonny! Thanks for the contribution!