Arduino - Writing int array with for loop doesn't work

I am a college student so I am still learning a lot. During the creation of the project, I came across something interesting. I have this segment of code that works when it doesn't fit in a for loop, but doesn't work when it is. I just want to understand why. Here is my code:

void setup() {
  Serial.begin(9600);
  int a[8];
  for(int i=0;i<8;i++) {
    a[i]=pow(2,i);
  }

  for(int i=0;i<8;i++) {
    Serial.print(a[i]);
  }
}

void loop() {
}

      

Here's the same code, written without the first for loop (where data is written to an array):

void setup() {
  Serial.begin(9600);
  int a[8];
  a[0]=pow(2,0);
  a[1]=pow(2,1);
  a[2]=pow(2,2);
  a[3]=pow(2,3);
  a[4]=pow(2,4);
  a[5]=pow(2,5);
  a[6]=pow(2,6);
  a[7]=pow(2,7);
  for(int i=0;i<8;i++) {
    Serial.print(a[i]);
  }
}

void loop() {
}

      

First code outputs:

1
2
3
7
15
31
63
127

      

While the second code outputs:

1
2
4
8
16
32
64
128

      

Somebody knows? I really want to know why.

+3


source to share


1 answer


You have a floating point ending. 2 ^ 4 will actually give you a value closer to 15.9999, and when an int is assigned to it, it truncates the decimal to 15. I would suggest doing bit changing operations when using powers of 2, for example:

  for(int i=0;i<8;i++)
  {
    a[i]=(1 << i);
  }

      

If you want to read bit switching take a look here . If you want to know more about floating point rounding take a look here .



Also, if you'd like to just adjust your code closer to what you have, I believe this will work as well:

  for(int i=0;i<8;i++)
  {
    a[i]= (int) round( pow(2, i) );
  }

      

This will round the floating result correctly before passing it to an int.

+6


source







All Articles