This code works but there must be a better/more elegant way

[lloyddean]

Sorry for the lack of verbose description but hopefully this will be somewhat self explanatory.

Roughly your code aped back at you in the form of arrays of structs as I interpreted the last code you posted above.

Code: [Select]


// logically this describes to the compiler what a block of memory we've named
// as 'record_t' will look like.
//
// From it the compiler will then know such a item in memory will have field
// names as given, in the order given and of the sizes as specified by the data
// 'types' specified before the field name.
//
// collectively a symbol when defined of type 'record_t' occupies 6 bytes

struct record_t
{
   byte    Channel_Number;         // this will occupy 1 byte space
   int     Channel_Frequency;      // this will occupy 2 bytes space
   boolean Output_Pin1;            // this will occupy 1 byte space
   boolean Output_Pin2;            // this will occupy 1 byte space
   boolean Output_Pin3;            // this will occupy 1 byte space
};


// here we actually declare an arrays of our user defined type 'record_t' we've
// specified the layout of above
//
// this array of type 'record_t' will reserve space in memory for the number of
// 'record_t' as specified by the provided initializer values
//
// in this case if I've added them correctly we will have reservered space for 8
// sequential 6 byte blocks of memory in the form of an 'record_t' as specified
// above

// the initial array values can be set during declaration only as follows

record_t records[] =
{
     { 1, 5705, 0, 0, 0 }  // 0
   , { 2, 5685, 1, 0, 0 }  // 1
   , { 3, 5665, 0, 1, 0 }  // 2
   , { 4, 5645, 1, 1, 0 }  // 3
   , { 5, 5885, 0, 0, 1 }  // 4
   , { 6, 5905, 1, 0, 1 }  // 5
   , { 7, 5925, 0, 1, 1 }  // 6
   , { 8, 5945, 1, 1, 1 }  // 7
};

void setup()
{
   // copy the array members into the fields of the structure 'record_t' in the
   // order in which they appear listed n the array
   //
   //  'Channel_Number', 'Channel_Frequency', Output_Pin1, Output_Pin2, Output_Pin3
   //
   // the 'magic' that lets the compiler do this is the cast operator
   // '(record_t)' which tell the compiler the data is in the form of a
   // 'record_t'
   record[8] = (record_t){ 0, 1, true, false, false };
}

void loop()
{}