STM32F4 UART HAL driver 'save string in variable buffer' - uart

Question

I am in the process of writing software for an STM32F4. The STM32 needs to pull in a string via a UART. This string is variable in length and comes in from a sensor every second. The string is stored in a fixed buffer, so the buffer content changes continuously.
The incoming string looks like this: "A12941;P2507;T2150;C21;E0;"
The settings of the UART:
Baud Rate: 19200
Word lengt: 8Bits
Parity: None
Stop Bids: 1
Over sampling: 16 Samples
Global interrupt: Enabled
No DMA settings
Part of the used code in the main.c function:
uint8_t UART3_rxBuffer[25];
void HAL_UART_RxCpltCallback(UART_HandleTypeDef *huart)
{
HAL_UART_Receive_IT(&huart3, UART3_rxBuffer, 25); //restart interrupt reception mode
int main(void)
{
HAL_UART_Receive_IT (&huart3, UART3_rxBuffer,25);
}
while (1)
{
}
}
Part of the code in stm32f4xx_it.c
void USART3_IRQHandler(void)
{
/* USER CODE BEGIN USART3_IRQn 0 */
/* USER CODE END USART3_IRQn 0 */
HAL_UART_IRQHandler(&huart3);
/* USER CODE BEGIN USART3_IRQn 1 */
/* USER CODE END USART3_IRQn 1 */
}
It does work to fill the buffer with the variable strings in this way, but because the buffer is constantly being replenished, it is difficult to extract a beginning and an end of the string. For example, the buffer might look like this:
[0]'E' [1]'0' [2]'/n' [3]'A' [4]'1' [5]'2' [6]'9' [7]'4' [8]'1' [9]';' [10]'P' etc....
But I'd like to have a buffer that starts on 'A'.
My question is, how can I process incoming strings on the uart correctly so that I only have the string "A12941;P2507;T2150;C21;E0;"?
Thanks in advance!!

Answer 1

I can see three possibilities:
Do all of your processing in the interrupt. When you get to the end of a variable-length message then do everything that you need to do with the information and then change the location variable to restart filling the buffer from the start.
Use (at least) two buffers in parallel. When you detect the end of the variable-length message in interrupt context then start filling a different buffer from position zero and signal to main context that previous buffer is ready for processing.
Use two buffers in series. Let the interrupt fill a ring buffer in a circular way that takes no notice of when a message ends. In main context scan from the end of the previous message to see if you have a whole message yet. If you do, then copy it out into another buffer in a way that makes it start at the start of the buffer. Record where it finished in the ring-buffer for next time, and then do your processing on the linear buffer.
Option 1 is only suitable if you can do all of your processing in less than the time it takes the transmitter to send the next byte or two. The other two options use a bit more memory and are a bit more complicated to implement. Option 3 could be implemented with circular mode DMA as long as you poll for new messages frequently enough, which avoids the need for interrupts. Option 2 allows to queue up multiple messages if your main context might not poll frequently enough.

Answer 2

I would like to share a sample code related to your issue. However it is not what you are exactly looking for. You can edit this code snippet as you wish. If i am not wrong you can also edit it according to option 3.
void HAL_UART_RxCpltCallback(UART_HandleTypeDef *huart)
{
if (huart->Instance == USART2) {
HAL_UART_Receive_IT(&huart2,&rData,1);
rxBuffer[pos++] = rData;
if (rData == '\n') {
pos = 0;
}
}
Before start, in the main function, before while loop you should enable interrupt for one byte using "HAL_UART_Receive_IT(&huart2,&rData,1);". If your incoming data has limiter like '\n', so you can save whole data which may have different length for each frame.
If you want data frame start with some specific character, then you can wait to save data until you get this character. In this case you can edit this code by changing '\n' as your character, and after you get that character, you should start to save following data to inside the buffer.