Serial.read() is getting a whole string rather than just a character?

Question

From the arduino documentation, the Serial.read() function is supposed to return a single character at a time from incoming serial messages. So if I program the arduino with the following:

#include "SPI.h"
void setup() {
 Serial.begin(115200);
}
void loop() {
 if (Serial.available() > 0) {
 char data1 = Serial.read();
 Serial.print(data1);
 }
}

And I open the serial monitor and send "Hello, World!" I would expect the received message to be the individual characters printed one at time but instead I get back the whole message. So what gives? What am I not understanding?

• Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams: ... That you're printing characters until no more are available.
• Alex: But shouldn't they be printed one at a time?
• Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams: They are being printed one at a time. But how fast can you read?
• Alex: Oh I see. I stuck a delay() in there and It makes more sense now. I am not that smart, apparently.

Answer 1

You only think it is a string, it actually returns character by character. You can know by adding something like a delay after you Serial.print(). What the program actually does is that it receives one character each time you type one and it prints it, then the void loop repeats.