Using Serial Port names as a variable array for looping access to same block of code

Question

If I have multiple NODES one on each Serial port (and / or SoftwareSerial port) all of which have the same code for execution can the names of each Serial port be put into an array such that I can say:

for (int port = 0; port < 5; port++) {
 SensorSerial[port].listen();
 // Do a bunch of stuff
}

Is it as simple as predefining the SensorPort[] array as

Stream& SensorSerial[] = {Node0, Node1, Node2, Node3, Node4}

• Juraj: do you get some error?
• jsotola: this might help ... here are couple of examples of array of objects that I put together ... the button example is probably the one for you, because each object in the array can have a different name (line 62) ... wokwi.com/projects/370998742721727489 and wokwi.com/projects/361204185271583745

Answer 1

The C++ language does not allow the creation of an array of references. The simple workaround is to instead use an array of pointers:

// Define SensorSerial as an array of pointers.
Stream* SensorSerial[] = {&Node0, &Node1, &Node2, &Node3, &Node4};
// In some function:
for (int port = 0; port < 5; port++) {
 SensorSerial[port]->listen();
 // Do a bunch of stuff
}

Edit: This is only a direct translation of your code to the array-of-pointers principle, but see timemage's comment for another issue.

• timemage: ->listen() is a SoftwareSerial thing. So it would need to be SoftwareSerial *SensorSerial[] =. Or otherwise you need to downcast to SoftwareSerial * before using listen().
• Edgar Bonet: @timemage: Indeed. I only addressed the actual question, without fixing this other issue.