Using String variable to represent Array

Projects Programming
11

if you care about the name of the animation, you could keep it with the array (and the size of the array) in a structure. Then you make an array of structure and pick randomly an entry in that array

here is an example (typed here, not tested) that would print a random animation every 3s (Serial Monitor @ 115200 bauds)

byte Left2Right[]  = {2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9};
byte Right2Left[]  = {9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2};
byte LeftOut2In1[] = {2, 9, 3, 8, 4, 7, 5, 6};
byte RightOut2In[] = {9, 2, 8, 3, 7, 4, 6, 5};
byte In2Out1[]     = {5, 6, 4, 7, 3, 8, 2, 9};
byte In2Out2[]     = {6, 5, 7, 4, 8, 3, 9, 2};

struct t_animation {
  const char* name;
  byte  length;
  byte* list;
};

t_animation animationList[] = {
  {"Left2Right ",  sizeof Left2Right,  Left2Right},
  {"Right2Left ",  sizeof Right2Left,  Right2Left},
  {"LeftOut2In1", sizeof LeftOut2In1, LeftOut2In1},
  {"RightOut2In", sizeof RightOut2In, RightOut2In},
  {"In2Out1    ", sizeof In2Out1,     In2Out1},
  {"In2Out2    ", sizeof In2Out2,     In2Out2},
};
const byte animationCount = sizeof animationList / sizeof animationList[0];

void playAnimation(byte index) {
  Serial.print(F("Playing animation: ")); Serial.print(animationList[index].name);
  Serial.print(F("\t"));
  for (byte i = 0; i < animationList[index].length; i++) {
    Serial.print(animationList[index].list[i]); Serial.write(' ');
  }
  Serial.println();
}

void setup() {
  Serial.begin(115200); Serial.println();
}

void loop() {
  byte randomAnimationIndex = random(0, animationCount); // pick one of the animations
  playAnimation(randomAnimationIndex);
  delay(3000);
}