How to send data in hex on SerialPort - c++

How to send data in hex on SerialPort?
I used this function, I receive the "yes, I can write to port" but I do not receive the data I entered
QByteArray send_data;
if(serialPort->isWritable())
{
qDebug()<<"Yes, I can write to port!";
int size = sizeof(send_data);
serialPort->write(send_data,size);
}
send_data += static_cast<char>(0xAA);
serialPort->write(send_data);

Data are transmitted in binary (essentially a sequence of 0 and 1). No matter what. Showing data in hexadecimal rather than a string of characters is just a choice.
In the following example, you can see that the array string_c is initialized with the same string that you are using in your code. Next, I print the data in both, as hex and as a string. You can see that the only difference is in the way I decided to print the data. The source data is the same for both.
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdint.h>
#include <inttypes.h>
void printCharInHexadecimal(const char* str, int len)
{
for (int i = 0; i < len; ++ i) {
uint8_t val = str[i];
char tbl[] = "0123456789ABCDEF";
printf("0x");
printf("%c", tbl[val / 16]);
printf("%c", tbl[val % 16]);
printf(" ");
}
printf("\n");
}
int main()
{
char string_c[] = "Yes, i can write to port";
// string printed in hex
printCharInHexadecimal(string_c, 24);
// same string printed as "text"
printf("%s\n",string_c);
return 0;
}
You can see the above code running here: https://onlinegdb.com/Y7fwaMTDoq
Note: I got the function printCharInHexadecimal from here: https://helloacm.com/the-c-function-to-print-a-char-array-string-in-hexadecimal/

As suspected, your use of sizeof is wrong. It is not returning the size of the contained data, it is returning a non-zero constant that is the size of a QByteArray object itself. Since that object was freshly constructed it should be empty, and any size you use in the first write other than zero will lead to undefined behavior. Use:
int size = (int)send_data.size();
Skip the first write entirely, and use the above for your second write.

You need to be clear about what you expect. 0xAA in your source code is simply an integer value using hex representation. It complies to exactly the same code regardless of the source code presentation: 0xAA == 170 == 0263.
If you actually intended to output a string of characters at run time representing a value in hexadecimal, you need to convert that value from an integer to a string. For example;
char hexbyte[3] ;
sprintf( hexbyte, "%02X", 170 ) ;
serialPort->write(send_data) ;
will output ASCII characters AA, whilst demonstrating the equivalence of 170 to 0xAA. That is the hex notation in the source does not affect the value or how it is stored or represented in the compiled machine code.

Related

How to convert a char array to a byte array?

I'm working on my project and now I'm stuck with a problem that is, how can I convert a char array to a byte array?.
For example: I need to convert char[9] "fff2bdf1" to a byte array that is byte[4] is 0xff,0xf2,0xbd,0xf1.
Here is a little Arduino sketch illustrating one way to do this:
void setup() {
Serial.begin(9600);
char arr[] = "abcdef98";
byte out[4];
auto getNum = [](char c){ return c > '9' ? c - 'a' + 10 : c - '0'; };
byte *ptr = out;
for(char *idx = arr ; *idx ; ++idx, ++ptr ){
*ptr = (getNum( *idx++ ) << 4) + getNum( *idx );
}
//Check converted byte values.
for( byte b : out )
Serial.println( b, HEX );
}
void loop() {
}
The loop will keep converting until it hits a null character. Also the code used in getNumonly deals with lower case values. If you need to parse uppercase values its an easy change. If you need to parse both then its only a little more code, I'll leave that for you if needed (let me know if you cannot work it out and need it).
This will output to the serial monitor the 4 byte values contained in out after conversion.
AB
CD
EF
98
Edit: How to use different length inputs.
The loop does not care how much data there is, as long as there are an even number of inputs (two ascii chars for each byte of output) plus a single terminating null. It simply stops converting when it hits the input strings terminating null.
So to do a longer conversion in the sketch above, you only need to change the length of the output (to accommodate the longer number). I.e:
char arr[] = "abcdef9876543210";
byte out[8];
The 4 inside the loop doesn't change. It is shifting the first number into position.
For the first two inputs ("ab") the code first converts the 'a' to the number 10, or hexidecimal A. It then shifts it left 4 bits, so it resides in the upper four bits of the byte: 0A to A0. Then the second value B is simply added to the number giving AB.
Assuming you want to parse the hex values in your string, and two letters always make up one byte value (so you use leading zeros), you can use sscanf like this:
char input[] = "fff2bdf1";
unsigned char output[4];
for (int i=0; i<4; i++) {
sscanf(&input[i*2], "%02xd", &data[i]);
}
Just shift 0 or 1 to its position in binary format :)
char lineChars[8] = {1,1,0,0,0,1,0,1};
char lineChar = 0;
for(int i=0; i<8;i++)
{
lineChar |= lineChars[i] << (7-i);
}
Example 2. But is not tested!
void abs()
{
char* charData = new char;
*charData = 'h';
BYTE* byteData = new BYTE;
*byteData = *(BYTE*)charData;
}

Need to change a string to binary, then to ASCII

I have some data coming in from a sensor. The data is in the range of a signed int, 16 bits or so. I need to send the data out via Bluetooth.
Problem:
The data is -1564, lets say.The Bluetooth transmits -, 1, 5, 6, then 4. This is inefficient. I can process the data on the PC later, I just need the frequency to go up.
My Idea/ Solution:
Have it convert to binary, then to ASCII for output. I can convert the ASCII later in processing. I have the binary part (found on StackOverflow) here:
inline void printbincharpad(char c)
{
for (int i = 7; i >= 0; --i)
{
putchar( (c & (1 << i)) ? '1' : '0' );
}
}
This outputs in binary very well. But getting the bluetooth to transmit, say 24, spits out 1, 1, 0, 0, then 0. In fact, slower than just 2, then 4.
Say I have 65062, 5 bytes to transmit, coming out of the sensor. That is 1111111000100110 in binary, 16 bytes. To ASCII, it's �& (yes, the character set here is small, I know, but it's unique) just 2 bytes! In HEX it's FE26, 4 bytes. A savings of 3 vs decimal and 14 vs. binary and 2 vs. Hex. Ok, obviously, I want ASCII sent out here.
My Question:
So, how do I convert to ASCII if given a binary input?
I want to send that, the ASCII
Hedging:
Yes, I code in MatLab more than C++. This is for a microcontroller. The BAUD is 115200. No, I don't know how the above code works, I don't know where putchar's documentation is found. If you knw of a library that I need to run this, please tell me, as I do not know.
Thank you for any and all help or advice, I do appreciate it.
EDIT: In response to some of the comments: it's two 16 bit registers I am reading from, so data loss is impossible.
putchar writes to the standard output, which is usually the console.
You may take a look at the other output functions in the cstdio (or stdio.h) library.
Anyways, using putchar(), here's one way to achieve what you're asking for:
void print_bytes (int n)
{
char *p = (char *) &n ;
for (size_t i = 0; i < sizeof (n); ++i) {
putchar (p [i]) ;
}
}
If you know for certain that you only want 16 bits from the integer, you can simplify this like this:
void print_bytes (int n)
{
char b = n & 0xff ;
char a = (n >> 8) & 0xff ;
putchar (a) ;
putchar (b) ;
}
Looks like when you say ASCII, you mean Base 256. You can search for solutions to converting from Base 10 to Base 256.
Here is a C program that converts an string containing 65062 (5 characters) to a string of 2 characters:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
int main()
{
char* inputString="65062";
int input;
char* tmpString;
char* outString;
int Counter;
input = atoi(inputString);
outString= malloc (sizeof(input) + 1);
tmpString = &input;
for (Counter=0; Counter < sizeof(input) ; Counter++) {
outString[Counter] = tmpString[Counter];
}
outString[sizeof(input)] = '\0';
printf ("outString = %s\n", outString);
free(outString);
}

C++ Convert char array to int representation

What is the best way to convert a char array (containing bytes from a file) into an decimal representation so that it can be converted back later?
E.g "test" -> 18951210 -> "test".
EDITED
It can't be done without a bignum class, since there's more letter combinations possible than integer combinations in an unsigned long long. (unsigned long long will hold about 7-8 characters)
If you have some sort of bignum class:
biguint string_to_biguint(const std::string& s) {
biguint result(0);
for(int i=0; i<s.length(); ++i) {
result *= UCHAR_MAX;
result += (unsigned char)s[i];
}
return result;
}
std::string biguint_to_string(const biguint u) {
std::string result;
do {
result.append(u % UCHAR_MAX)
u /= UCHAR_MAX;
} while (u>0);
return result;
}
Note: the string to uint conversion will lose leading NULLs, and the uint to string conversion will lose trailing NULLs.
I'm not sure what exactly you mean, but characters are stored in memory as their "representation", so you don't need to convert anything. If you still want to, you have to be more specific.
EDIT: You can
Try to read byte by byte shifting the result 8 bits left and oring it
with the next byte.
Try to use mpz_inp_raw
You can use a tree similar to Huffman compression algorithm, and then represent the path in the tree as numbers.
You'll have to keep the dictionary somewhere, but you can just create a constant dictionary that covers the whole ASCII table, since the compression is not the goal here.
There is no conversion needed. You can just use pointers.
Example:
char array[4 * NUMBER];
int *pointer;
Keep in mind that the "length" of pointer is NUMBER.
As mentioned, character strings are already ranges of bytes (and hence easily rendered as decimal numbers) to start with. Number your bytes from 000 to 255 and string them together and you've got a decimal number, for whatever that is worth. It would help if you explained exactly why you would want to be using decimal numbers, specifically, as hex would be easier.
If you care about compression of the underlying arrays forming these numbers for Unicode Strings, you might be interested in:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Compression_Scheme_for_Unicode
If you want some benefits of compression but still want fast random-access reads and writes within a "packed" number, you might find my "NSTATE" library to be interesting:
http://hostilefork.com/nstate/
For instance, if you just wanted a representation that only acommodated 26 english letters...you could store "test" in:
NstateArray<26> myString (4);
You could read and write the letters without going through a compression or decompression process, in a smaller range of numbers than a conventional string. Works with any radix.
Assuming you want to store the integers(I'm reading as ascii codes) in a string. This will add the leading zeros you will need to get it back into original string. character is a byte with a max value of 255 so it will need three digits in numeric form. It can be done without STL fairly easily too. But why not use tools you have?
#include <iostream>
#include <sstream>
using namespace std;
char array[] = "test";
int main()
{
stringstream out;
string s=array;
out.fill('0');
out.width(3);
for (int i = 0; i < s.size(); ++i)
{
out << (int)s[i];
}
cout << s << " -> " << out.str();
return 0;
}
output:
test -> 116101115116
Added:
change line to
out << (int)s[i] << ",";
output
test -> 116,101,115,116,

Dealing with hex values in C/C++

I receive values using winsock from another computer on the network. It is a TCP socket, with the 4 first bytes of the message carrying its size. The rest of the message is formatted by the server using protobuf (protocol buffers from google).
The problemn, I think, is that it seems that the values sent by the server are hex values sent as char (ie only 10 received for 0x10). To receive the values, I do this :
bytesreceived = recv(sock, buffer, msg_size, 0);
for (int i=0;i<bytesreceived;i++)
{
data_s << hex << buffer[i];
}
where data_s is a stringstream. Them I can use the ParseFromIstream(&data_s) method from protobuf and recover the information I want.
The problem that I have is that this is VERY VERY long (I got another implementation using QSock taht I can't use for my project but which is much faster, so there is no problem on the server side).
I tried many things that I took from here and everywhere on the internet (using Arrays of bytes, strings), but nothing works.
Do I have any other options ?
Thank you for your time and comments ;)
not sure if this will be of any use, but I've used a similar protocol before (first 4 bytes holds an int with the length, rest is encoded using protobuf) and to decode it I did something like this (probably not the most efficient solution due to appending to strings):
// Once I've got the first 4 bytes, cast it to an int:
int msgLen = ntohl(*reinterpret_cast<const int*>(buffer));
// Check I've got enough bytes for the message, if I have then
// just parse the buffer directly
MyProtobufObj obj;
if( bytesreceived >= msgLen+4 )
{
obj.ParseFromArray(buffer+4,msgLen);
}
else
{
// just keep appending buffer to an STL string until I have
// msgLen+4 bytes and then do
// obj.ParseFromString(myStlString)
}
I wouldn't use the stream operators. They're for formatted data and that's not what you want.
You can keep the values received in a std::vector with the char type (vector of bytes). That would essentially just be a dynamic array. If you want to continue using a string stream, you can use the stringstream::write function which takes a buffer and a length. You should have the buffer and number of bytes received from your call to recv.
If you want to use the vector method, you can use std::copy to make it easier.
#include <algorithm>
#include <iterator>
#include <vector>
char buf[256];
std::vector<char> bytes;
size_t n = recv(sock, buf, 256, 0);
std::copy(buf, buf + n, std::back_inserter(bytes));
Your question is kind of ambiguous. Let's follow your example. You receive 10 as characters and you want to retrieve this as a hex number.
Assuming recv will give you this character string, you can do this.
First of all make it null terminated:
bytesreceived[msg_size] = '\0';
then you can very easily read the value from this buffer using standard *scanf function for strings:
int hexValue;
sscanf(bytesreceived, "%x", &hexValue);
There you go!
Edit: If you receive the number in reverse order (so 01 for 10), probably your best shot is to convert it manually:
int hexValue = 0;
int positionValue = 1;
for (int i = 0; i < msg_size; ++i)
{
int digit = 0;
if (bytesreceived[i] >= '0' && bytesreceived[i] <= '9')
digit = bytesreceived[i]-'0';
else if (bytesreceived[i] >= 'a' && bytesreceived[i] <= 'f')
digit = bytesreceived[i]-'a';
else if (bytesreceived[i] >= 'A' && bytesreceived[i] <= 'F')
digit = bytesreceived[i]-'A';
else // Some kind of error!
return error;
hexValue += digit*positionValue;
positionValue *= 16;
}
This is just a clear example though. In reality you would do it with bit shifting for example rather than multiplying.
What data type is buffer?
The whole thing looks like a great big no-op, since operator<<(stringstream&, char) ignores the base specifier. The hex specifier only affects formatting of non-character integral types. For certain you don't want to be handing textual data to protobuf.
Just hand the buffer pointer to protobuf, you're done.
OK, a shot into the dark: Let's say your ingress stream is "71F4E81DA...", and you want to turn this into a byte stream { 0x71, 0xF4, 0xE8, ...}. Then we can just assemble the bytes from the character literals as follows, schematically:
char * p = getCurrentPointer();
while (chars_left() >= 2)
{
unsigned char b;
b = get_byte_value(*p++) << 8;
b += get_byte_value(*p++);
output_stream.insert(b);
}
Here we use a little helper function:
unsigned char get_byte_value(char c)
{
if ('0' <= c && c <= '9') return c - '0';
if ('A' <= c && c <= 'F') return 10 + c - 'A';
if ('a' <= c && c <= 'f') return 10 + c - 'a';
return 0; // error
}

Howto read chunk of memory as char in c++

Hello I have a chunk of memory (allocated with malloc()) that contains bits (bit literal), I'd like to read it as an array of char, or, better, I'd like to printout the ASCII value of 8 consecutively bits of the memory.
I have allocated he memory as char *, but I've not been able to take characters out in a better way than evaluating each bit, adding the value to a char and shifting left the value of the char, in a loop, but I was looking for a faster solution.
Thank you
What I've wrote for now is this:
for allocation:
char * bits = (char*) malloc(1);
for writing to mem:
ifstream cleartext;
cleartext.open(sometext);
while(cleartext.good())
{
c = cleartext.get();
for(int j = 0; j < 8; j++)
{ //set(index) and reset(index) set or reset the bit at bits[i]
(c & 0x80) ? (set(index)):(reset(index));//(*ptr++ = '1'):(*ptr++='0');
c = c << 1;
}..
}..
and until now I've not been able to get character back, I only get the bits printed out using:
printf("%s\n" bits);
An example of what I'm trying to do is:
input.txt contains the string "AAAB"
My program would have to write "AAAB" as "01000001010000010100000101000010" to memory
(it's the ASCII values in bit of AAAB that are 65656566 in bits)
Then I would like that it have a function to rewrite the content of the memory to a file.
So if memory contains again "01000001010000010100000101000010" it would write to the output file "AAAB".
int numBytes = 512;
char *pChar = (char *)malloc(numBytes);
for( int i = 0; i < numBytes; i++ ){
pChar[i] = '8';
}
Since this is C++, you can also use "new":
int numBytes = 512;
char *pChar = new char[numBytes];
for( int i = 0; i < numBytes; i++ ){
pChar[i] = '8';
}
If you want to visit every bit in the memory chunk, it looks like you need std::bitset.
char* pChunk = malloc( n );
// read in pChunk data
// iterate over all the bits.
for( int i = 0; i != n; ++i ){
std::bitset<8>& bits = *reinterpret_cast< std::bitset<8>* >( pByte );
for( int iBit = 0; iBit != 8; ++iBit ) {
std::cout << bits[i];
}
}
I'd like to printout the ASCII value of 8 consecutively bits of the memory.
The possible value for any bit is either 0 or 1. You probably want at least a byte.
char * bits = (char*) malloc(1);
Allocates 1 byte on the heap. A much more efficient and hassle-free thing would have been to create an object on the stack i.e.:
char bits; // a single character, has CHAR_BIT bits
ifstream cleartext;
cleartext.open(sometext);
The above doesn't write anything to mem. It tries to open a file in input mode.
It has ascii characters and common eof or \n, or things like this, the input would only be a textfile, so I think it should only contain ASCII characters, correct me if I'm wrong.
If your file only has ASCII data you don't have to worry. All you need to do is read in the file contents and write it out. The compiler manages how the data will be stored (i.e. which encoding to use for your characters and how to represent them in binary, the endianness of the system etc). The easiest way to read/write files will be:
// include these on as-needed basis
#include <algorithm>
#include <iostream>
#include <iterator>
#include <fstream>
using namespace std;
// ...
/* read from standard input and write to standard output */
copy((istream_iterator<char>(cin)), (istream_iterator<char>()),
(ostream_iterator<char>(cout)));
/*-------------------------------------------------------------*/
/* read from standard input and write to text file */
copy(istream_iterator<char>(cin), istream_iterator<char>(),
ostream_iterator<char>(ofstream("output.txt"), "\n") );
/*-------------------------------------------------------------*/
/* read from text file and write to text file */
copy(istream_iterator<char>(ifstream("input.txt")), istream_iterator<char>(),
ostream_iterator<char>(ofstream("output.txt"), "\n") );
/*-------------------------------------------------------------*/
The last remaining question is: Do you want to do something with the binary representation? If not, forget about it. Else, update your question one more time.
E.g: Processing the character array to encrypt it using a block cipher
/* a hash calculator */
struct hash_sha1 {
unsigned char operator()(unsigned char x) {
// process
return rc;
}
};
/* store house of characters, could've been a vector as well */
basic_string<unsigned char> line;
/* read from text file and write to a string of unsigned chars */
copy(istream_iterator<unsigned char>(ifstream("input.txt")),
istream_iterator<char>(),
back_inserter(line) );
/* Calculate a SHA-1 hash of the input */
basic_string<unsigned char> hashmsg;
transform(line.begin(), line.end(), back_inserter(hashmsg), hash_sha1());
Something like this?
char *buffer = (char*)malloc(42);
// ... put something into the buffer ...
printf("%c\n", buffer[0]);
But, since you're using C++, I wonder why you bother with malloc and such...
char* ptr = pAddressOfMemoryToRead;
while(ptr < pAddressOfMemoryToRead + blockLength)
{
char tmp = *ptr;
// temp now has the char from this spot in memory
ptr++;
}
Is this what you are trying to achieve:
char* p = (char*)malloc(10 * sizeof(char));
char* p1 = p;
memcpy(p,"abcdefghij", 10);
for(int i = 0; i < 10; ++i)
{
char c = *p1;
cout<<c<<" ";
++p1;
}
cout<<"\n";
free(p);
Can you please explain in more detail, perhaps including code? What you're saying makes no sense unless I'm completely misreading your question. Are you doing something like this?
char * chunk = (char *)malloc(256);
If so, you can access any character's worth of data by treating chunk as an array: chunk[5] gives you the 5th element, etc. Of course, these will be characters, which may be what you want, but I can't quite tell from your question... for instance, if chunk[5] is 65, when you print it like cout << chunk[5];, you'll get a letter 'A'.
However, you may be asking how to print out the actual number 65, in which case you want to do cout << int(chunk[5]);. Casting to int will make it print as an integer value instead of as a character. If you clarify your question, either I or someone else can help you further.
Are you asking how to copy the memory bytes of an arbitrary struct into a char* array? If so this should do the trick
SomeType t = GetSomeType();
char* ptr = malloc(sizeof(SomeType));
if ( !ptr ) {
// Handle no memory. Probably should just crash
}
memcpy(ptr,&t,sizeof(SomeType));
I'm not sure I entirely grok what you're trying to do, but a couple of suggestions:
1) use std::vector instead of malloc/free and new/delete. It's safer and doesn't have much overhead.
2) when processing, try doing chunks rather than bytes. Even though streams are buffered, it's usually more efficient grabbing a chunk at a time.
3) there's a lot of different ways to output bits, but again you don't want a stream output for each character. You might want to try something like the following:
void outputbits(char *dest, char source)
{
dest[8] = 0;
for(int i=0; i<8; ++i)
dest[i] = source & (1<<(7-i)) ? '1':'0';
}
Pass it a char[9] output buffer and a char input, and you get a printable bitstring back. Decent compilers produce OK output code for this... how much speed do you need?