Grouping multiple pins to one variable

Question

I'm new to all of this, but it's there a way to group a cluster of pins to one variable? I don't necessarily want the grouped pounds to be sequential.

• Majenko: It's called an array.
• Erik: Does it need to be byte form?
• Majenko: An array can be made from any data type you like. Google "Arduino Arrays".
• 001: Can you be more specific as to what you wish to accomplish?
• Erik: One example of a application I am considering is a grid of LEDs. I may wait to group some LEDs to look like constellations. I would like to have variables naming the constellations, that I can't turn on and off like a light switch.

Answer 1

Only if you drop to low-level access, and only if the pins are on the same port.

#define pinset 0x55
 ...
PORTC |= pinset;
delay(1000);
PORTC &= ~pinset;

Answer 2

In the example of the constellations, consider using an array for each constellation where each element in the array corresponds to an LED output pin. You could simply put a 1 or a 0 in each array element to indicate if you want the corresponding LED output pin on or off. It would be easy then to create a function that you would pass a constellation array and would turn the LED output pins on or off based on the contents of the array.