PROGMEM in new IDE

Projects Programming
1

I am running some older code that uses PROGMEM to stick a bunch of strings into an array for use later.

char* name_last[] PROGMEM = {"Armitage", "Baird", "Baldwin", "Bardsley", "Fisher", "Wyrzykowsi", "Piantella", "Restina", "Molenaar", "Taylor", "Atherton", "Schelter", "Baumgartner", "Burns", "Caldwell", "Chang", "Cowper", "Cox", "Felbrigge", "Foster", "Harper", "Henderson", "Higgens", "Holdeman", "Hunt", "Jolce", "Margaret", "Mordaga", "Osterweiss", "Porter", "Prevatt", "Rodacker", "Rosenstiehl", "Rowley", "Schmidt", "Schneider", "Schreckengost", "Schuleit", "Shafer", "Shaw", "Sheets", "Stall", "Strickland", "Thompson", "Tonkin", "Vinsant", "Ward", "Wheeler", "Wolfe", "Young"};  

#define array_last_length   ((sizeof(name_last)/sizeof(char *)))

But, I am new getting an error that states:

 error: variable 'name_last' must be const in order to be put into read-only section by means of '__attribute__((progmem))'

I have found the more modern way of updating the code so it works, but it would require tons of code like:

      const char male_0[] PROGMEM = "Asa"; 
      const char male_1[] PROGMEM = "Avery";
      const char male_2[] PROGMEM = "Benedict";
      const char male_3[] PROGMEM = "Cameron";
      const char male_4[] PROGMEM = "Casey";
      const char male_5[] PROGMEM = "Claude";

These strings are input from a separate system, and I would REALLY like to avoid having to write a single line of code for each one. What changed, and how can I use my old code again?

Thanks,

Ryan

2

The PROGMEM reference has been updated : PROGMEM - Arduino Reference

Here is a tutorial, from simple to advanced : Gammon Forum : Electronics : Microprocessors : Putting constant data into program memory (PROGMEM)

By the way, your older code didn't work as intended. You have to write those strings one by one in PROGMEM. That was the way in the old days and that is the way now.

You could add an escape character as seperator between the strings, and have one very long concatenated string. In the sketch search for the right string. That needs some code, because searching in PROGMEM must be done one character at a time.

In the tutorial by Nick Gammon there is an alternative "An alternative away of achieving an array of strings, without using a struct, is like this:". It uses a maximum fixed size for a string. If you have enough memory for PROGMEM, use the maximum length of a name and put them in a fixed array.