How convert byte to char* - c++

I'm working with a ATmega328p and Arduino System in a Project, I'm trying to get the saved data in 2 spaces of a eeprom memory and concat it. I always ask to google and check examples but this time I give up.
byte dataEE = readEEPROM(disk1,space);
I normally use strcat, but in this case I cand find the way to convert Byte type to char*
char * strcat ( char * destination, const char * source );
My system is working right now with String to solve this. but a I'd like to know a more efficient way, I always read that we must avoid the String.
String TimeData = String(readEEPROM(disk1,space1)) + String(readEEPROM(disk1,space2));

Maybe something like this:
char TimeData[3];
TimeData[0] = (char) readEEPROM(disk1,space1);
TimeData[1] = (char) readEEPROM(disk1,space2);
TimeData[2] = 0;
Now you can use TimeData wherever you would normally use a null-terminated char* string.

Related

To many char read by fread

Im am trying to open a file in binary mode and write the content to a buffer in C++.
I am using fread for this. However something goes wrong.
My code is:
FILE * in = fopen("in", "rb");
_in = new unsigned char [length_in];
fread(_in, sizeof(char), length_in, in);
When debugging i can see that _in = unsigned char * "Asdfghjkl\x1f \x10" .
When rebuilding the program, the part \x1f \x10 changes randomly or disappears.
What i am expecting is always _in = unsigned char * "Asdfghjkl" .
When replacing length_in with 9 i still get something like"Asdfghjkl\x1f \x10" .
What am I missing. I am using a Mac and Xcode.
Your array is created uninitialized, so those are garbage values from whatever was in memory beforehand. Initialize it to zeros like this:
_in = new unsigned char [length_in]();
Also fread returns the number of bytes read. If you’re treating it like a string, make sure the result is null-terminated.

Convert from vector<unsigned char> to char* includes garbage data

I'm trying to base64 decode a string, then convert that value to a char array for later use. The decode works fine, but then I get garbage data when converting.
Here's the code I have so far:
std::string encodedData = "VGVzdFN0cmluZw=="; //"TestString"
std::vector<BYTE> decodedData = base64_decode(encodedData);
char* decodedChar;
decodedChar = new char[decodedData.size() +1]; // +1 for the final 0
decodedChar[decodedData.size() + 1] = 0; // terminate the string
for (size_t i = 0; i < decodedData.size(); ++i) {
decodedChar[i] = decodedData[i];
}
vector<BYTE> is a typedef of unsigned char BYTE, as taken from this SO answer. The base64 code is also from this answer (the most upvoted answer, not the accepted answer).
When I run this code, I get the following value in the VisualStudio Text Visualiser:
TestStringÍ
I've also tried other conversion methods, such as:
char* decodedChar = reinterpret_cast< char *>(&decodedData[0]);
Which gives the following:
TestStringÍÍÍýýýýÝÝÝÝÝÝÝ*b4d“
Why am I getting the garbage data at the end of the string? What am i doing wrong?
EDIT: clarified which answer in the linked question I'm using
char* decodedChar;
decodedChar = new char[decodedData.size() +1]; // +1 for the final 0
Why would you manually allocate a buffer and then copy to it when you have std::string available that does this for you?
Just do:
std::string encodedData = "VGVzdFN0cmluZw=="; //"TestString"
std::vector<BYTE> decodedData = base64_decode(encodedData);
std::string decodedString { decodedData.begin(), decodedData.end() };
std::cout << decodedString << '\n';
If you need a char * out of this, just use .c_str()
const char* cstr = decodedString.c_str();
If you need to pass this on to a function that takes char* as input, for example:
void someFunc(char* data);
//...
//call site
someFunc( &decodedString[0] );
We have a TON of functions and abstractions and containers in C++ that were made to improve upon the C language, and so that programmers wouldn't have to write things by hand and make same mistakes every time they code. It would be best if we use those functionalities wherever we can to avoid raw loops or to do simple modifications like this.
You are writing beyond the last element of your allocated array, which can cause literally anything to happen (according to the C++ standard). You need decodedChar[decodedData.size()] = 0;

Convert a 16-bit integer to an array of char? (C++)

I need to write 16-bit integers to a file. fstream only writes characters. Thus I need to convert the integers to char - the actual integer, not the character representing the integer (i.e. 0 should be 0x00, not 0x30) I tried the following:
char * chararray = (char*)(&the_int);
However this creates a backwards array of two characters. The individual characters are not flipped, but the order of the characters is. Thus I created this function:
char * inttochar(uint16_t input)
{
int input_size = sizeof(input);
char * chararray = (char*)(&input);
char * output;
output[0]='\0';
for (int i=0; i<input_size; i++)
{
output[i]=chararray[input_size-(i+1)];
}
return output;
}
This seems slow. Surely there is a more efficient, less hacky way to convert it?
It's a bit hard to understand what you're asking here (perhaps it's just me, although I gather the commentators thought so too).
You write
fstream only writes characters
That's true, but doesn't necessarily mean you need to create a character array explicitly.
E.g., if you have an fstream object f (opened in binary mode), you can use the write method:
uint16_t s;
...
f.write(static_cast<const char *>(&s), sizeof(uint16_t));
As others have noted, when you serialize numbers, it often pays to use a commonly-accepted ordering. Hence, use htons (refer to the documentation for your OS's library):
uint16_t s;
...
const uint16_t ns = htons(s);
f.write(static_cast<const char *>(&ns), sizeof(uint16_t));

Weird characters when trying to grab char * from fstream

I am trying to read 4 characters at a specific position from a file. The code is simple but the result is really confusing:
fstream dicomFile;
dicomFile.open(argv[1]);
dicomFile.seekg(128,ios::beg);
char * memblock = new char [4];
dicomFile.read(memblock,4);
cout<<"header is "<<memblock<<endl;
Ideally the result should be "DICM" but the actual result from the console was "DICM" plus weird characters, as shown in the picture. What's more, every time I run it, the characters are different. I suppose this may be something about ASCII and Unicode, I tried to change project property from Unicode to multibytes and then change back, no difference.
Does anyone know what's happening here and how do I solve it please? Thanks very much!
C style (char *) strings use the concept of null-terminators. This means strings are ended with a '\0' character in their last element. You are reading in exactly 4 characters into a 4 character buffer, which does not include a null character to end the string. C and C++ will happily run right off the end of your buffer in search for the null terminator that signifies the end of the string.
Quick fix is to create a block of length + 1, read in length data, then set str[length] = '\0'. In your case it would be as below.
char * memBlock = new char [5];
// populate memBlock with 4 characters
memBlock[ 4 ] = '\0';
A better solution is to use std::string instead of char * when working with strings in C++.
You could also initialize the buffer with zeros, putting null-terminators at every location.
char * memblock = new char [5](); // zeros, and one element longer
Fairly inefficient though.

Replace method changes size of QByteArray

I want to manipulate a 32 bit write command which I have stored in a QByteArray. But the thing that confuses me is that my QByteArray changes size and I cannot figure out why that happens.
My code:
const char CMREFCTL[] = {0x85,0x00,0x00,0x0B};
QByteArray test = QByteArray::fromRawData(CMREFCTL, sizeof(CMREFCTL));
qDebug()<<test.toHex();
const char last1 = 0x0B;
const char last2 = 0x0A;
test.replace(3,1,&last2);
qDebug()<<test.toHex();
test.replace(3,1,&last1);
qDebug()<<test.toHex();
Generates:
"0x8500000b"
"0x8500000a0ba86789"
"0x8500000ba867890ba86789"
I expected the following output:
"0x8500000b"
"0x8500000a"
"0x8500000b"
Using test.replace(3,1,&last2,1) works but I dont see why my code above dont give the same result.
Best regards!
Here is the documentation for the relevant method:
QByteArray & QByteArray::replace ( int pos, int len, const char *
after )
This is an overloaded function.
Replaces len bytes from index position pos with the zero terminated
string after.
Notice: this can change the length of the byte array.
You are not giving the byte array a zero-terminated string, but a pointer to a single char. So it will scan forward in memory from that pointer until it hits a 0, and treat all that memory as the string to replace with.
If you just want to change a single character test[3] = last2; should do what you want.