Error reading data from UART in PIC32

Question

I am trying to communicate with PIC32 UART. I am able to transmit any data but getting problem in reading the data. In PIC32 there's a function putsUART2("") which can transmit any data and there's function getsUART1(5, myBuffer, 123);. Parameter's for this function are:

1)length: This is the length of the string to be received
2)buffer: This is the pointer to the location where the data
          received have to be stored.
3)uart_data_wait: This is the time-out count for which the module
                  has to wait before return.  If the time-out count is ‘N’,
                  the actual time out would be about (19 * N – 1) instruction cycles.

Now what I am doing in my code is

if((U2STAbits.URXDA)!=0)  //if data received,then
{
    getsUART2(5,RxBuffer , 123); //storing the data in RxBuffer
    putsUART2(">>Data Received\r\n");
    U2STAbits.URXDA = 0; 
    U2STAbits.OERR = 0;                     
    putsUART2(RxBuffer); //transmitting the data back to the terminal
}

Now when I type 'A', >>Data Received is printed on the terminal and I am getting back data in terminal. but as the size of the RxBuffer is 5, it only stores one character. Can anyone help me with this, I really want to type a string and get back it on terminal.

Please help, thanks.

Answer 1

Your code is activated as soon as the UART has received at least one character. Then it tries to retrieve as many characters from the UARTs buffer, with a maximum of 5 characters, and waiting a maximum of 122 * 19 instruction cycles. Apparently, that time limit is not enough to receive the next character, so you end up with only the one character that was fully received. If you want to receive more charcaters you will have to call this code again (and again...), or you must specify a timeout that is sufficient to receive all characters (but that requires that you know whether the sender sends all characters back-to-back, which in general you can't know).