Determining variable length (number of digits) possible?

[CuriousOne]

Hello.
I'm writing a custom parser for MAX7219 - it can display data and most of ASCII characters in any digit of connected 8 digit 7 segment led display.
So say there is an input variable, XVR, which can hold any value from 1 to 9999.
I have a loop, which will extract via DIG value of individual digits from this variable and send them to MAX7219
The idea is to have loop repeat N times, where N is the total length of variable, and on each run, increase DIG value by 1, so next digit will be extracted, and in case of 2 digit variable, say from 11 to 99, it won't go thru whole display.
On ZX Spectrum we had a LEN statement, but here we not.

Any ideas?

[Jerson]

I will give a generic answer as my PICBasic skills are weak at the moment

Assume your variable x contains 1000

You can strip out digits like this from Right to left with position 0 at the right (least significant position) of the display

    position = 0
     if x > 9999 then x=9999                  ' restrict to maximum you can display

     while x != 0
         digit[position] = x Mod 10            ' keep the digit
         x = x div 10                                  ' integer divide by 10
         position = position+1                   ' next display position
     end while

This will automatically stop if the value is 1..9 at 1 digit, or 11..99 at 2 digits and so on.

[CuriousOne]

Thanks, but will this give me variable length?
I need to know number of digits in variable, to turn off unused digits on display (instead of showing zeroes there).

[Jerson]

What you're looking for is commonly known as leading zero blanking. You could continue with filling blanks to digits after the value is zero. That is how you will achieve it.

[mpgmike]

IF XVR > 999 THEN
[Work the first digit]
ENDIF ;If not, no action taken
IF XVR > 99 THEN
[Work the 2nd digit]
ENDIF ;If not, no action taken

[CuriousOne]

I'm doing a more featured custom decoder, which will display both letters and digits on max7219 7 segment display. It will also have custom decoder for digital values. The code is below:

FOURD=12345 'test value
dstart=2 'start segment
DLEN=2 'decode length

TEST: 'test digits
FOR x=DLEN TO 1 STEP -1
Z=FOURD DIG X+1	'EXTRACT VALUE
GOSUB FOURDEC
PAUSE 500
NEXT
GOTO TEST

FOURDEC:	'DIGIT DECODER
if Z=0 then Y=126
if Z=1 then Y=48
if z=2 then Y=109
if z=3 then Y=121
if z=4 then Y=51
if z=5 then Y=91
if z=6 then Y=95
if z=7 then Y=112
if z=8 then Y=127
if z=9 then Y=115
low load
shiftout datapin,clockpin,1,[x+DSTART-1, y]	'DISPLAY THE LETTER
high load
RETURN

This code works, but DLEN instead of cropping digits from the left, crops them from the right - say initial variable is "12345" and I want to display 2 digits from it, I'm getting "45" instead of "12", have no idea why. Same for start position - DSTART starts from rightmost position, instead of leftmost....

[CuriousOne]

FOURD=12345
FOURD=FOURD>>2 should return FOURD=123, right? but it returns 11419 !

[CuriousOne]

Forgot to mention, startup shift fixed:
shiftout datapin,clockpin,1,[X-DLEN+DSTART, y]

[mpgmike]

FOURD=12345
FOURD=FOURD>>2 should return FOURD=123, right? but it returns 11419 !

Not sure how that happened. First, you wouldn't get "123", as Right Shift 2 (>> 2) is the same as Divide by 4; in which case 12345 >> 2 = 3086 and not 11419.

Since you're dealing with a display, you may have to treat each place holder as a unique byte (perhaps value + $30 to convert it to ASCii); "12345" would be saved as $31, $32, $33, $34, $35 in an array. You can then shift your pointer 2 places to look at 123 by itself (as 3 individual bytes, of course).

[CuriousOne]

I've written a PC based converter, which deals with ASCII conversion. It generates PBP code for EEPROM.

[CuriousOne]

So back to shift.
How to trim one variable from left to right, to value of another variable?

say trim 12345 by 3 - mean, make 123 digits from it.

[HenrikOlsson]

12345 / 10 = 1234
12345 / 100 = 123
12345 / 1000 = 12
12345 / 10000 = 1

/Henrik.

[CuriousOne]

This requires too many IFs....
On spectrum we had X=LEFT(Y,Z)....

[Ioannis]

You are mixing string with numeric values...

12345 is a decimal number.

LEN or any other similar command (LEFT, RIGHT, MID) will take as an input just string characters, not numeric values.

Ioannis

[pedja089]

Look up DIG. It isolates single digit, as you need it, without IF...