Disable the Arduino's autoreset feature.
http://www.arduino.cc/playground/Main/DisablingAutoResetOnSerialConnection

You wait 32 microseconds for all the data to arrive

Not even close

No mystery, but not recommended.
It causes a delay of 32 milliseconds (and therefore limits your update rate to about 30Hz).
In those 32 milliseconds, you could have transmitted over 350 characters at 115200 bits per second

Code:

if(Serial.available() > 0)
  {
    delay(sizeof(data));
    for(int i = 0; i < sizeof(data); i++)data[i] = (Serial.read() % 0xff);

A delay based on the size of an array?
What happens when you change the bit rate?
Why not eliminate the delay and read data when it is actually there?

If you need the max function use it instead of ternary without any penalty

Except that it's a macro, not a function, and as such, may not be penalty-free.

You're allowed to delete your own duplicate posts.
http://www.arduino.cc/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1286353200
Just click the "remove" label, up there on the right.

Oh - while I am here, I was trying to pass a length param (Xindex) to only read the num chars that had been stored from the most recent input and so be able to reuse the buffer without initializing it again. Couldn't figure out how to do that - but writing a 0 into the buffer with this line

That's because sscanf expects a 'C' string, which is an array of chars, where the last character is a zero, sometimes represented '\0'.
The compiler automatically includes such a character for strings declared in the program, (e.g. "%u" actually consists of three chars '%' 'u' and '\0'), but for input strings, you got to put your own on (unless handled by libraries or interface functions).

extern NewSoftSerial lcdSerial[glow](what?)[/glow];

This sentence:

I have used processing before however am having trouble using the syntax associated with the arduino.

leads me to suspect that you are confusing the languages and the IDE.
C syntax is not the same as Java syntax.

Processing, which is based on Java, has nothing to do with Wiring, which is based on C and C++.

The Arduino is "inspired" by Processing, but compiling Processing code in the Arduino IDE will produce the sort of errors you reported.

but its my understanding that the platform was based on processing

No, the IDE is.

If you insist on using "delay", you could do it like this:

Code:

digitalWrite(13, HIGH);
 delay(10);            
 digitalWrite(13, LOW);  
 delay(map (analogRead (potPin), 0, 1023, 1, 1000)));

Still don't see where the sawtooth comes from.

analogWrite (13, map (analogRead (potPin), 0, 1023, 0, 255));

Will allow you to dim the LED with the pot.

I do not actually need a SAWTOOTH PULSE

But now I want it to blink close to like a SAWTOOTH PULSE..

Which?

Have a look at "analogWrite", but remember that it only works on certain pins.
http://arduino.cc/en/Reference/AnalogWrite

I am new to arduino...
So cannot make out how to write...

Yet you wrote sketch to display the pot's mapped value on an LCD?

As Korman said, work through some examples, come to us when you are stuck, but don't expect us to write stuff for you.

[glow]L[/glow]ong

http://arduino.cc/en/Reference/IntegerConstants

Code:

val =(x * 1000000[glow]L[/glow]) + (y * 1000[glow]L[/glow]) + z;