C Programming for Arduino

Julien Bayle

• Publisher: Packt Publishing
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781849517584
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Informatik
• Subtopic: Programmierung in C

In Detail

Physical computing allows us to build interactive physical systems by using software & hardware in order to sense and respond to the real world. C Programming for Arduino will show you how to harness powerful capabilities like sensing, feedbacks, programming and even wiring and developing your own autonomous systems.

C Programming for Arduino contains everything you need to directly start wiring and coding your own electronic project. You'll learn C and how to code several types of firmware for your Arduino, and then move on to design small typical systems to understand how handling buttons, leds, LCD, network modules and much more.

After running through C/C++ for the Arduino, you'll learn how to control your software by using real buttons and distance sensors and even discover how you can use your Arduino with the Processing framework so that they work in unison. Advanced coverage includes using Wi-Fi networks and batteries to make your Arduino-based hardware more mobile and flexible without wires. If you want to learn how to build your own electronic devices with powerful open-source technology, then this book is for you.

Approach

Written as a practical Packt book brimming with engaging examples, C Programming for Arduino will help those new to the amazing open source electronic platform so that they can start developing some great projects from the very start.

Who this book is for

This book is great for people who want to learn how to design & build their own electronic devices. From interaction design art school students to the do-it-yourself hobbyist, or even simply people who want to learn electronics, this book will help by adding a new way to design autonomous but connected devices.

C Programming for Arduino

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Table of Contents

C Programming for Arduino

Credits

About the Author

Acknowledgement

About the Reviewers

www.PacktPub.com

Support files, eBooks, discount offers and more

Why Subscribe?

Free Access for Packt account holders

Preface

What this book covers

What you need for this book

Who this book is for

Conventions

Reader feedback

Customer support

Downloading the example code

Errata

Piracy

Questions

1. Let's Plug Things

What is a microcontroller?

Presenting the big Arduino family

About hardware prototyping

Understanding Arduino software architecture

Installing Arduino development environment (IDE)

Installing the IDE

How to launch the environment?

What does the IDE look like?

Installing Arduino drivers

Installing drivers for Arduino Uno R3

Installing drivers for Arduino Duemilanove, Nano, or Diecimilla

What is electricity?

Voltage

Current and power

And what are resistors, capacitors, and so on?

Wiring things and Fritzing

What is Fritzing?

Power supply fundamentals

Hello LED!

What do we want to do exactly?

How can I do that using C code?

Start with a new blank page

Setting up the environment according the board we are using

Let's write the code

Let's upload the code, at last!

Summary

2. First Contact with C

An introduction to programming

Different programming paradigms

Programming style

C and C++?

C is used everywhere

Arduino is programmed with C and C++

The Arduino native library and other libraries

Discovering the Arduino native library

Other libraries included and not directly provided

Some very useful included libraries

Some external libraries

Checking all basic development steps

Using the serial monitor

Baud rate

Serial communication with Arduino

Serial monitoring

Making the Arduino talk to us

Adding serial communication to Blink250ms

Serial functions in more detail

Serial.begin()

Serial.print() and Serial.println()

Digging a bit…

Talking to the board from the computer

Summary

3. C Basics – Making You Stronger

Approaching variables and types of data

What is a variable?

What is a type?

The roll over/wrap concept

Declaring and defining variables

Declaring variables

Defining variables

String

String definition is a construction

Using indexes and search inside String

charAt()

indexOf() and lastIndexOf()

startsWith() and endsWith()

Concatenation, extraction, and replacement

Concatenation

Concat()

Using the + operator on strings

Extract and replace

substring() is the extractor

Splitting a string using a separator

Replacement

Other string functions

toCharArray()

toLowerCase() and toUpperCase()

trim()

length()

Testing variables on the board

Some explanations

The scope concept

static, volatile, and const qualifiers

static

volatile

const

Operators, operator structures, and precedence

Arithmetic operators and types

Character types

Numerical types

Condensed notations and precedence

Increment and decrement operators

Types manipulations

Choosing the right type

Implicit and explicit types conversions

Implicit type conversion

Explicit type conversion

Comparing values and Boolean operators

Comparison expressions

Combining comparisons with Boolean operators

Combining negation and comparisons

Adding conditions in the code

if and else conditional structure

Chaining an if…else structure to another if…else structure

if…else structure with combined comparisons expressions

Finding all cases for a conditional structure

switch…case…break conditional structure

Ternary operator

Making smart loops for repetitive tasks

for loop structure

Playing with increment

More complex increments

Decrements are negative increments

Using imbricated for loops or two indexes

while loop structure

do…while loop structure

Breaking the loops

Infinite loops are not your friends

Summary

4. Improve Programming with Functions, Math, and Timing

Introducing functions

Structure of a function

Creating function prototypes using the Arduino IDE

Header and name of functions

Body and statements of functions

Benefits of using functions

Easier coding and debugging

Better modularity helps reusability

Better readability

C standard mathematical functions and Arduino

Trigonometric C functions in the Arduino core

Some prerequisites

Difference between radians and degrees

Cosine, sine, and tangent

Arccosine, arcsine, and arctangent

Trigonometry functions

Exponential functions and some others

Approaching calculation optimization

The power of the bit shift operation

What are bit operations?

Binary numeral system

Easily converting a binary number to a decimal number

AND, OR, XOR, and NOT operators

AND

OR

XOR

NOT

Bit shift operations

It is all about performance

The switch case labels optimization techniques

Optimizing the range of cases

Optimizing cases according to their frequency

Smaller the scope, the better the board

The Tao of returns

Direct returns concept

Use void if you don't need return

Secrets of lookup tables

Table initialization

Replacing pure calculation with array index operations

Taylor series expansion trick

The Arduino core even provides pointers

Time measure

Does the Arduino board own a watch?

The millis() function

The micros() function

Delay concept and the program flow

What does the program do du...