Serial.available()

It would be really helpful if you would explain what application you are using to send the data, what options you have set, and how, exactly, you are sending the data.

To send data to Arduino, i use the serial monitor launched from the Arduino IDE.
My purpose is to send ASCII codes (so composed by one ore more digits) to Arduino and get back the corresponding character....is it possible...?

Think about what you have.
Imagine you start "loop" with three characters in the buffer.
Think about what will happen to Serial.available after you have read out one character.

I'm not able to figure it out...no ideas..

I'm not able to figure it out.

Imagine you start "loop" with three characters in the buffer.
You see that Serial.available returns three.
Three is greater than two, so you read one character out.
"loop" exits, gets called again, and you call Serial.available again
What happens next?

The best ratio of answers to questions is 1. Higher than 1 is much better than lower than 1.

Now, we know that you are using the Serial Monitor application, but not what options you have set, what you are sending or when.

My purpose is to send ASCII codes (so composed by one ore more digits) to Arduino and get back the corresponding character....is it possible...?

Yes, it is. It is quite easy, in fact.

There are two ways to go about it. One is to always send three characters, and hope like hell none get lost (not a realistic thing to do). The other is to send the value followed by a delimiter. The Serial Monitor makes this option easy.

Then, you read the data on the Arduino, storing it in a NULL terminated char array until the delimiter arrives. When that happens, you convert the array contents to an int, using atoi(), send a response, and reset the array index to 0 and put a NULL in that position of the array.

Though why you want to do this, versus looking in an ASCII table, is unclear.

Imagine you start "loop" with three characters in the buffer.
You see that Serial.available returns three.
Three is greater than two, so you read one character out.
"loop" exits, gets called again, and you call Serial.available again
What happens next?

void setup(){
  Serial.begin(9600);
}

void loop(){
  if(Serial.available()>2){
  char inBytes=Serial.read();
  Serial.println(inBytes);
  } 
  
}

first three characters typed:
"567"
Serial returns
"5"
(as you said)
going on with serial input, for example with
"sg89"
i get
"67sg"
ecc...

so, opening for the very first time the serial monitor, while less than 3 char are typed,
no signal is returned. When 3 or more char are entered, serial data began to flow from Arduino to pc.
Buffer does not reset each time the loop() cycle begin, for this reason, just when i open for the first time the serial port, this happens.
Right?...
my goodness, i'm sweating...

I don't see anything in your observations that I don't expect.
What are you expectations?

When 3 or more char are entered, serial data began to flow from Arduino to pc.

No, it does not. No serial data is sent until you press the Send button or hit the enter key.

Buffer does not reset each time the loop() cycle begin

True. It would be useless if it did.

just when i open for the first time the serial port, this happens.

No. The buffer is cleared because opening the serial port resets the Arduino. The buffer is set up after the reset, empty.

my goodness, i'm sweating...

You wouldn't be here. It's freezing.

When 3 or more char are entered, serial data began to flow from Arduino to pc.
No, it does not. No serial data is sent until you press the Send button or hit the enter key.

Yep, sorry, i meant "after pressing" enter key...

I don't see anything in your observations that I don't expect.
What are you expectations?

i was trying to get the meaning of Serial.available function, and what seem to be obvious statements,
for my experience, are enormous obstacles!

Thanks foor helping me, Your all advices have been precious for me!

PaulS:
You wouldn't be here. It's freezing.

Where I am it is 10 pm, 28 C (82 F). It's hot, man!

Think of Serial.available as a little guy who sits in your letter box, who tells how many letters there are in the box when you ask him.
If you take a letter out of the box (Serial.read) there's one fewer letter in the box, so next you ask Serial.available, he reports one fewer than last time you asked.
If you decide that you're only going to take out letters when there are three or more letters in the box.
You ask Serial.available, and he says "three".
So, you take one letter.
Then you ask again, and he says "two", so you don't take any letters.

If you decide that you're only going to take out letters when there are three or more letters in the box.
You ask Serial.available, and he says "three".
So, you take one letter.
Then you ask again, and he says "two", so you don't take any letters.

So, the trick here is when the little guy says that there are three letters, you need to take three.

Keep in mind that you still have not answered the question about what option you have chosen for the Serial Monitor, so if you type three characters and hit enter, there may be 3, 4, or 5 characters actually sent to the Arduino.

But, the idea that, because there are three or more characters to read, the characters represent a packet, and nothing but a packet is flawed. Serial data is not guaranteed to be delivered. A byte could have gotten corrupted for any number of reasons.

What you should be doing is having the Serial Monitor append something to the string you send. Then, you read and store each character that is available, followed by a NULL, unless that character is one that was added by the Serial Monitor. If it is, then the stored data is of interest, so you use it, and reset the index that defines where in the array you are storing data, along with NULLing the first element off the array.

Keep in mind that you still have not answered the question about what option you have chosen for the Serial Monitor, so if you type three characters and hit enter, there may be 3, 4, or 5 characters actually sent to the Arduino.

after uploading the program on Arduino, I open the serial monitor, digit characters inside the communication field, and hit enter. That's it.

Referring to the following code:

int input; 

void setup(){
  Serial.begin(9600);
}

void loop(){
  if(Serial.available()>=3){
  char input=Serial.read();  
  Serial.println(input);
  
  Serial.println("what serial.available contains:");
  Serial.println(Serial.available());
} 
  
}

if i enter "567", the Serial.print function returns "5"; that because, characters are sent to Arduino one by one, so when the first digit is sent, the if statement goes like that: "the first char enter the Arduino buffer. Now the Arduino buffer contains >= 3 elements? = NO! and so on, until i enter"7".
Now Arduino buffer contains 3 or more elements so 'if loop' is triggered, and Serial.read reads the first element stored in the buffer, that is "5"! Printing the element (Serial.available) left in the buffer, the answer is "2", and that is trivial...
But going on in the same serial monitor, typing other three char, for example "890": this is the signal returned:

6
what serial.available contains:
2
7
what serial.available contains:
3
8
what serial.available contains:
2

why after "7" character has been read, there are 3 elements left in Arduino buffer!?

I asked a very simple question. What option have you selected at the bottom of the Serial Monitor dialog? I'm not going to participate in this discussion any more until you answer that question.

I asked a very simple question. What option have you selected at the bottom of the Serial Monitor dialog? I'm not going to participate in this discussion any more until you answer that question.

At the bottom of the serial monitor there are:
-Autoscroll (flagged)
-No line ending
-9600 baud rate

-No line ending

You should change this to one of the other options. The others act like periods at the end of sentences, or spaces after words, to tell you where a stream of data breaks in meaningful ways.

if i enter "567", the Serial.print function returns "5";

Yes, and no. The Serial.print() function returns 1, because it printed one character. The character read was a '5', because there were 3 characters to read.

characters are sent to Arduino one by one, so when the first digit is sent, the if statement goes like that: "the first char enter the Arduino buffer. Now the Arduino buffer contains >= 3 elements? = NO! and so on, until i enter"7".

Again, yes and no. The characters are sent one by one. The test does evaluate to false because the characters arrive one by one, and for several thousands of iterations of loop, the '5' has arrived, but the '6' and '7' have not.

Only when the '6' and '7' arrive does the test evaluate to true.

But, while you are entering the characters one by one, the Serial Monitor sends them only when you hit the enter key/send icon.

Now Arduino buffer contains 3 or more elements so 'if loop' is triggered, and Serial.read reads the first element stored in the buffer, that is "5"! Printing the element (Serial.available) left in the buffer, the answer is "2", and that is trivial...

Yes. You are printing the number of elements left in the buffer, though, not the elements left in the buffer.

You really should get in the habit of identifying EVERYTHING printed to the serial port.

if(Serial.available() >= 3)
{
   char c = Serial.read();
   Serial.print("I read a [");
   Serial.print(c);
   Serial.println("]");

   Serial.print("The buffer still contains ");
   Serial.print(Serial.available());
   Serial.println(" characters");
}

You should change this to one of the other options.

Why, so adding non printable characters can add to the confusion?

With no line ending, the receiving end won't know after getting "567" if it should wait for "5678".

Confusing maybe, but even more confusing without it.

At the end:
data does not occupy the serial buffer on Arduino, until I hit "enter".
and the function that extracts data from the buffer is the Serial.read function. And when i call it, one digit (or character, depending on the variables initialization), comes out from the buffer and the "available elements" in the buffer decrease by one unit?

At the end:
data does not occupy the serial buffer on Arduino, until I hit "enter".
and the function that extracts data from the buffer is the Serial.read function. And when i call it, one digit (or character, depending on the variables initialization), comes out from the buffer and the "available elements" in the buffer decrease by one unit?

All true.

gianlucalongoni:
data does not occupy the serial buffer on Arduino, until I hit "enter".

And when you hit the data does not instantly go into the serial buffer. So if you type "12345" you won't find the number of available bytes instantly increase from 0 to 5, it will increase slowly at the baud rate. So at 9600 baud the characters will appear at roughly 1/960 of a second apart (about one every millisecond).

[quote author=Nick Gammon link=topic=138553.msg1042655#msg1042655 date=1356292469]
With no line ending, the receiving end won't know after getting "567" if it should wait for "5678".
Confusing maybe, but even more confusing without it.

That has nothing to do with the " if(Serial.available()>=3){ " issue of how many bytes are in the serial receive buffer being discussed. The person with the issue will now also have to evaluate line feeds and such if the code prints the captured string back to the serial monitor for trouble shooting.