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  VS Arduino › › › Serial monitor : handling control codes, specifically BACKSPACE.
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Normal Topic Serial monitor : handling control codes, specifically BACKSPACE. (Read 2061 times)
Asmodyne
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Serial monitor : handling control codes, specifically BACKSPACE.
Dec 2nd, 2021 at 7:15pm
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Hi there.

Is there a way to enable handling of ASCII control codes such as backspace in the serial monitor (i.e, '\b') ?   Roll Eyes

This would greatly improve the readability when monitoring long iterations and such.  Cheesy

Best regards. 
  
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Simon@Visual Micro
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Re: Serial monitor : handling control codes, specifically BACKSPACE.
Reply #1 - Dec 3rd, 2021 at 11:54am
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Outbound Data From Serial Monitor
If this is for sending to the board as outbound data, the "Cstr" button can be enabled at the top right of the Serial Monitor.

Inbound Data to Serial Monitor
At present the inbound data does not handle the \b or Serial.Write(8) codes and just produces a square.  The line terminator (\n) and tab (\t) escapes for example work correctly.

If it is for inbound data to the monitor, can you describe a simple scenario where you would want to remove the char from the monitor in this way? (instead of remove it from the buffer before sending to the PC).

Other applications can be used for the inbound data (e.g. CoolTerm, with Terminal>Handle BS and DEL Enabled), and we can investigate this for a future release once we understand it further.

  
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Asmodyne
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Re: Serial monitor : handling control codes, specifically BACKSPACE.
Reply #2 - Dec 3rd, 2021 at 4:54pm
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Hello Simon, thanks for the fast reply.

Yes, it is for inbound data. 
Here, i'll write a naive little arduino stub, on the fly, as an example.

Code
Select All
void loop()
{
   float value = sensor.getCurrentValue();
   if(!isNan(value)){
      printf("\b\b\b\b%01.2f units", value);      
  }
  delay(20);
}


( Yes, in this example, the "backspace" codes could be replace by a carriage return, but that's not the point )

Of course, the actual usage of backspace would appear in a much more format-and-values-heavy inbound trace, but you get the gist of it. Backspace is here to roll back on the previous value text and write a new one at the same text index.


« Last Edit: Dec 3rd, 2021 at 4:55pm by Asmodyne »  
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Cong Quyen Knight
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Re: Serial monitor : handling control codes, specifically BACKSPACE.
Reply #3 - Dec 9th, 2021 at 12:11am
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As I understand, you wanna remove '\b' as a garbage in recv buffer of serial monitor, right?
For hardware serial, receiving data is handle by a interrupt handle.
You could ignore that '\b' directly inside it.

Please refer function HardwareSerial::_rx_complete_irq in C:\Program Files (x86)\Arduino\hardware\arduino\avr\cores\arduino\HardwareSerial_private.h
  
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Tim@Visual Micro
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Re: Serial monitor : handling control codes, specifically BACKSPACE.
Reply #4 - Dec 9th, 2021 at 12:38am
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I think it is the read of string and display in std. windows textbox control that strips escape chars.

We are going to look at something but it will have to be enabled by users, for example Terminal Mode.
  
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Asmodyne
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Re: Serial monitor : handling control codes, specifically BACKSPACE.
Reply #5 - Dec 15th, 2021 at 1:51am
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Tim@Visual Micro wrote on Dec 9th, 2021 at 12:38am:
We are going to look at something but it will have to be enabled by users, for example Terminal Mode.

Indeed Tim, the behavior I'm expecting from the serial monitor is akin to terminal emulation.
This would be very handy, as a tty-capable terminal would produce format-rich and data-packed outputs, without the hassle of scrolling up and down the entire textbox to find pertinent information (as it did on old tty systems).

That is, if the device output isn't garbage due to bad programming, but that's another story (for the users & yours truly to deal with, once they enable this "Terminal Mode."). 

Some kind of upload-aware "putty" terminal, I guess ?

Cong Quyen Knight wrote on Dec 9th, 2021 at 12:11am:
remove '\b' as a garbage in recv buffer

Nope Cong Quyen Knight , that's not what I was talking about at all, sorry.  Undecided
  
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