Passing HardwareSerial and SoftwareSerial as a Class Property

Question

I wish to know if there is a way to use a single property Serial0 to hold a HardwareSerial or a SoftwareSerial or other class instances supporting basic methods such as available(), read() and write(), in order to make a CustomSerial Class (polymorphism?).

class CustomSerial{
 <GenericSerial??> Serial0;
 char c;
 void read(void){
 c=Serial0.read();
 }
};

The calls should be:

CustomSerial SerialCus;
int n=SerialCus.available();
char c=SerialCus.read();
SerialCus.write(c);

What should I use as GenericSerial class, or what should be the proper use? I tried the Stream class (as the answer pointed), but for some reason the functionality is not preserved (it writes unknown characters). Should indeed Stream be the generic class I need for this?

• Jot: If you can not make a common class, then you can use a template. If the class (any class) has a .available() and .read() and .write(), then the compiler fills in the used class.

Answer 1

A base type for Arduino hardware serial classes, SoftwareSerial and other software serial classes and some other Arduino classes is Stream (reference). Stream.h on GitHub

enter image description here

class CustomSerial {
private:
 Stream &stream;
public:
 CustomSerial(Stream &_stream) : stream(_stream) {}
 int read() {
 return stream.read();
 }
 int available() {
 return stream.available();
 }
 int peek() {
 return stream.peek();
 }
 void write(byte b) {
 stream.write(b);
 }
};
SoftwareSerial Serial0(10, 11);
CustomSerial SerialCus(Serial0);
void setup() {
}
void loop(){
 if (SerialCus.available()) {
 char c = SerialCus.read();
 SerialCus.write(c);
 }
}

• Brethlosze: I indeed used Stream for defining the property, but for some reason, this do not work the same way as using HardwareSerial, hence i have been unable to extend it for SoftwareSerial instances.
• Juraj: @hyprfrcb, I added code to the answer
• Brethlosze: This setting works perfect!... And also address how to use the Stream references... :)
• Jot: The AltSoftSerial uses the Stream as well.