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[on:]

I wanted to add serial output to my project, but don't have much space to spare.  Bringing in Serial costs over 1400 bytes just to transmit debug/logging data over the wire.  So I came up with this function which adds only 66 bytes.  

It only sends strings so that's part of why it's smaller    and it only transmits/cant use it in conjunction with Serial (why would you?)/and would need tweaking to work on a atmega8 or a non 16mhz chip.  But maybe someone has a need for it.

Code:

#define myubbr (16000000/16/9600-1)
void simpletx( char * string ){
  if (UCSR0B != (1<<TXEN0)){ //do we need to init the uart?
     UBRR0H = (unsigned char)(myubbr>>8);
     UBRR0L = (unsigned char)myubbr;
     UCSR0B = (1<<TXEN0);//Enable transmitter
     UCSR0C = (3<<UCSZ00);//N81
  }
  byte x = 0;      
  char c = string[x];      
  while(c != 0){  
    while ( !( UCSR0A & (1<<UDRE0)) );
    UDR0 = c; //send the data
    x++;      
    c = string[x];      
  }      
}

void setup(){}

void loop(){
  simpletx("Hello\n");
  delay(500);
}

[Reply #1 on:]

Hey, dcb, that is indeed cool and potentially quite useful.  Thanks for sharing!  I gather it's hardcoded for 9600 baud, but that could easily be adjusted by changing the definition of myubbr?

Here's the same function trimmed down to 56 bytes:

#define myubbr (16000000/16/9600-1)
void simpletx( char * string ){
  if (UCSR0B != (1<<TXEN0)){ //do we need to init the uart?
     UBRR0H = (unsigned char)(myubbr>>;
     UBRR0L = (unsigned char)myubbr;
     UCSR0B = (1<<TXEN0);//Enable transmitter
     UCSR0C = (3<<UCSZ00);//N81
  }
  while (*string)
  {
    while ( !( UCSR0A & (1<<UDRE0)) );
    UDR0 = *string++; //send the data
  }
}

Mikal

[Reply #2 on:]

#define myubbr (16000000/16/9600-1)
void simpletx( char * string ){
 if (UCSR0B != (1<<TXEN0)){ //do we need to init the uart?
    UBRR0H = (unsigned char)(myubbr>>;
    UBRR0L = (unsigned char)myubbr;
    UCSR0B = (1<<TXEN0);//Enable transmitter
    UCSR0C = (3<<UCSZ00);//N81
 }
 while (*string)
 {
   while ( !( UCSR0A & (1<<UDRE0)) );
   UDR0 = *string++; //send the data
 }
}

Hi Mikal, it doesn't look like the while loop will terminate,  I think *string is always true for any non null string

[Reply #3 on:]

Hi mem,

Hi Mikal, it doesn't look like the while loop will terminate.

Hmm... I think it will.  At least it worked for the one 5-second test I did.

No seriously, the (outer) loop will always terminate because string is being incremented at every iteration, and so eventually *string, the while loop test condition, will attain a value of 0 when it gets to the end of the string.

Try dcb's test program:

Code:

void setup(){}
void loop()
{
  simpletx("Hello\n");
  delay(500);
}

It works great with both revisions of simpletx().  I like that tiny function!  Thanks.

Mikal

PS: You often see this kind of technique in old C strcpy code, like:

Code:

void strcpy(char *to, char *from)
{
  while (*to++ = *from++); // !
}

M

[Reply #4 on:]

Cute,   That seems to work too  Except I count 56 bytes

[Reply #5 on:]

56 bytes

Yup, that's right!  Same here!

M