The hidden Arduino Macro F() fixes random lock ups

Wed, 20 Nov 2013 12:25:33 +0000

It’s 3am but you are not going to bed until you squash this last bug. You sprinkle Serial.print() statements everywhere you can think of, and then that’s when all hell breaks loose: Your code randomly locks up, the LEDs go crazy, and you’ve had it. What’s going on? You’ve run out of RAM!

All of those Serial.print() statements are composed of c-style strings. Which are “constant character arrays.” In order for those arrays to work properly, they get loaded into the ATmega’s RAM before your code starts running. Which can be a problem because 2,048 bytes of RAM doesn’t allow for much.

Strings on Bald Engineer

The hidden Arduino Macro F() fixes random lock ups