USB and Serial Communication - Exploring Arduino: Tools and Techniques for Engineering Wizardry - page 119

ChangingDataTypeRepresentations

The Serial.print() and Serial.println() functions are fairly intelligent when
it comes to printing out data in the format you are expecting. However, you have
options for outputting data in various formats, including hexadecimal, octal,
and binary. Decimal-coded ASCII is the default format. The Serial.print()
and Serial.println() functions have an optional second argument that speci-
fies the print format. Table 6-1 includes examples of how you would print the
same data in various formats and how it would appear in your serial terminal.

Table 6-1: Serial Data Type Options

DATA TYPE EXAMPLE CODE SERIAL OUTPUT

Decimal Serial.println(23); 23

Hexadecimal Serial.println(23, HEX); 17

Octal Serial.println(23, OCT) 27

Binary Serial.println(23, BIN) 00010111

TalkingtotheArduino

What good is a conversation with your Arduino if it's only going in one direc-
tion? Now that you understand how the Arduino sends data to your computer,
let's spend some time discussing how to send commands from your computer
to the Arduino. You've probably already noticed that the Arduino IDE serial
monitor has a text entry field at the top, and a drop-down menu at the bottom.
Figure 6-8 highlights both.

Figure 6-8: Screenshot of serial terminal highlighting text entry field and Line Ending
Options drop-down menu