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\nUsing Serial.read() with Arduino | Part 1\n

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\n\nPublisher:\n\nProgramming Electronics Academy\n\n\n
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\nAre you trying to use Serial.read() to get data from a serial port to your Arduino? Maybe you’re using the Arduino Serial Monitor window and sending in data, or maybe you’ve got a program running on your raspberryPi sending data via...\nAre you trying to use Serial.read() to get data from a serial port to your Arduino? Maybe you’re using the Arduino Serial Monitor window and sending in data, or maybe you’ve got a program running on your raspberryPi sending data via serial to your Arduino board.

How do you use serial.read() to receive the data, and piece it together correctly? In this lesson you will learn exactly how to use Serial.read() to receive data from the serial port and stitch it together as one value.

AN OVERVIEW WHAT WE’LL COVER:
The big picture of serial communication
The serial buffer
Serial.read and Serial.available
Developing a protocol and strategy for reading in data from the serial port
Implement the strategy in Arduino code
BONUS: How to convert the serial data from a string to an integer
THE BIG PICTURE OF SERIAL COMMUNICATION
Let’s take a step back from Serial.read(), and talk about Serial Communication.

Serial communication is the process of sending one bit of data at a time, sequentially, from one place to another. Like say, sending data from your raspberryPi to a connected Arduino, or vice versa.

USB is one of the most common methods used for serial communication, hence the name Universal Serial Bus. Using Arduino we can easily send and receive data over a USB cable with the built-in Arduino Serial Library.

Now if you don’t know what an Arduino library is, it’s basically a bunch of code that has been bundled together, because it is often used together.

Imagine you were a barber, maybe you have a specific drawer in your barber shop for all your hair cutting tools. Every time somebody walks in for a haircut, you know exactly where to look, in that hair cutting drawer, and all your tools are right there.

Maybe you have another drawer with all the stuff you need for dying peoples hair, when someone walks in and asks to get their hair dyed red, you know exactly which drawer to open. Same thing with Arduino libraries. Arduino libraries put together a bunch of software functions that help you with specific tasks.

SERIAL LIBRARY FUNCTIONS
For serial communication, we can use the built-in Arduino Serial library.

The Serial library has functions like:

Serial.begin()
Serial.read()
Serial.available()
Serial.parseInt()
Serial.parseString()
Serial.parseFloat()
Serial.print()
Serial.captCrunch()
OK, we know that Serial Communication over USB is how we can talk between one device and another, and we know that the Arduino Serial library is the set of tools we’ll use for serial communication. But where does the data that comes from another device actually go on the Arduino?

THE SERIAL BUFFER
The answer is the serial buffer, or perhaps more precisely, the serial receive buffer. When bits of data start streaming in from your computer, a piece of hardware on your Arduino called a UART will assemble each of the 8 bits into a byte, and store those bytes for you in the Serial Receive Buffer.

The serial receive buffer can hold 64 bytes.

The data you send from your computer, to your Arduino, will end up in the serial receive buffer.

How do you get this data? That is where Serial.read() comes in.

SERIAL.READ()
Serial.read() is a function of the Serial library. What it does is read out the first available byte from the serial receive buffer. When it reads it out, it removes that byte from the buffer.

Say you had sent the phrase “Sub Sandwich” to your Arduino. This means you had put 12 bytes into your serial receive buffer.\n
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10:00
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Higher Ed
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Subjects
STEM
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\nProgramming Electronics Academy\n\n
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Date
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2021
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English
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For Teacher Use
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data, reading, electronics
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arduino, arduino tutorial, arduino lesson, open source hardware group, learning arduino, microcontrollers, arduino ide, arduino sketch, c++, programming electronics academy, serial.read, serial.available, parseint, serial port, serial monitor, serial monitor arduino, serial monitor arduino not working, electronics basics, electronics for beginners, programming tutorial, serial read and write arduino, learn arduino, learn electronics for beginners, terminating character, raspberry pi, serial communication, character array, receive data, sending data, serial buffer, serial read, sending, serial, variable, character, buffer, read, integer, place, drawer, send, phrase, step, protocol, string, code, bytes, byte, return
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