Thread: XOR checksum calculation of 6 variables

A program to calculate the checksum of one variable is here below (source: http://forum.arduino.cc/index.php?topic=488003.0).

However, I need a program (based on this below if possible) that calculates this checksum for 3 floats, 2 integers and one ASCII character. These variables are individually available.

In reverse, the same calculation needs to be done at the receiving end where the data is available as string characters separated by commas. For example: 43.25,28.25,11.20,33,28,A. (the dot after A is included).
So at the receiving end the same values as at the transmitting side are available but separated with commas.

Code:

String dataToParse;
void setup()
{
  // put your setup code here, to run once:
  Serial.begin(115200);
}

void loop()
{
  // put your main code here, to run repeatedly:

   if (Serial.available() > 0)
      {           
      dataToParse = Serial.readString();
      Serial.print("ToCheckSum.:");
      Serial.println(dataToParse);
      Serial.print("");
      Serial.print("ToCheckLength.:");
      Serial.println(dataToParse.length());
      Serial.print("");
      char toCheck[dataToParse.length()];
      Serial.print("Size ToCheck.:");
      Serial.println(sizeof(toCheck));
      dataToParse.toCharArray(toCheck,dataToParse.length());
      byte aaa = getCheckSum(toCheck);
      Serial.print("CheckSum HEX.:");
      Serial.println(aaa,HEX);
      Serial.print("CheckSum DEC.:");
      Serial.println(aaa,DEC);
      Serial.print("");     
      dataToParse ="";
     } 
}
uint8_t getCheckSum(char *string)
{
  int XOR = 0; 
  for (int i = 0; string[i] != '\0';  i+= 2) // <-- increment by 2
  {
    Serial.print("i.:");
    Serial.println(string[i]);
    Serial.print("");

    // make single byte value out of 2 characters from the string...
    byte b1,b2,b;

    // First byte: hex to bin
    b1 = string[i];
    if (b1 >= 'a')
      b1 = b1 - 'a' + 10;
    else if (b1 >= 'A')
      b1 = b1 - 'A' + 10;
    else
      b1 -= '0';

    // Second byte: hex to bin
    b2 = string[i + 1];
    if (b2 >= 'a')
      b2 = b2 - 'a' + 10;
    else if (b2 >= 'A')
      b2 = b2 - 'A' + 10;
    else
      b2 -= '0';

    // Combine the two
    b = 0x10 * b1 + b2;

    XOR = XOR ^ b;
  }

  return XOR; 
}

I receive the data in a char array (size 32), not a string (I had edited my message after posting).
I am not familiar enough with Arduino language to know. But since the data is in a cha array I assume/hope/think/.. that it should not be too hard to extract the first characters and the first comma from this array. I just don't know enough of C how to do this.

No. Just the values as shown in my initial post.

Originally Posted by laserlight

Ah. It seems to me that you have two options:

• Parse the char array "manually". This means looping over the characters of the array until either all the items have been tokenised (presumably by looking for the next ',' character) and parsed, or all 32 characters have been processed.
• Copy the char array to another char array of 33 characters, and append a null character after the last valid character. After doing this, you can then use standard C functions like sscanf to parse the null terminated string, or strtok to tokenise it based on the commas and then you parse the individual tokens yourself.

If you have space to spare (it is only another 33 characters, so 36 bytes at most for alignment) and the standard library string functions are available, I would recommend the second approach.

Parsing is done separately. A transmitter sends about 24 bytes at 1200 baud; a startmarker < and an endmarker > are included around three floats, two integers and one character (identifier: A, or B or C or D) plus a dot. Floats, integers and identifier are separated by a comma.
At TX a XOR checksum is performed (2 hex characters) and inserted after the < and the first float, separated by a comma.

At RX these two hex characters and the first comma need to be extracted (ie as in "removed") and used to be compared with the same XOR checksum calculation of the received characters (excluding the < and the > and the hex characters. Both XOR calculations then are compared to verify integrity of the received character array.

So, in this case, my question is how to remove the 2 hex characters and the first comma from the received array. And store the 2 hex characters for further use.

Parsing is done separately in a different function, with the received character array excluding the 2 hex characters and excluding the first comma behind the 2 hex characters.

Originally Posted by laserlight

That would be even easier since you basically have two goals:

• Extract the checksum.
• Obtain a pointer to the actual data, i.e., a pointer to the first character in the array after the comma that denotes the end of the checksum.

This can be done in one of two ways, depending on the format of the input:

• If you know for sure that the checksum will be exactly two hex digit characters followed by a comma, then to extract it you just need to extract the first two characters, e.g., whether you compute the integer checksum from the hex characters, or just copy the two characters to another array. The pointer to the actual data is trivial since it is just char_array + 3.
• Otherwise, you need to loop to find the first comma. Once you do so, the portion of the array before that comma is the checksum, and you just need to +1 to the pointer to that comma to get the pointer to the actual data.

To extract/remove the first three characters (2 hex characters and a comma) I think of using strtol(); and store as hex data
Is that your idea to, or something else? How to write this command in my case?

The checksum can then be performed on the remainder in the char array.