Arduino Reference - SoftwareSerialAvailable

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SoftwareSerial: available()

Description

Get the number of bytes (characters) available for reading from a software serial port. This is data that's already arrived and stored in the serial receive buffer.

Syntax

mySerial.available()

Parameters

none

Returns

the number of bytes available to read

Example

// include the SoftwareSerial library so you can use its functions:
#include <SoftwareSerial.h>

#define rxPin 2
#define txPin 3

// set up a new serial port
SoftwareSerial mySerial =  SoftwareSerial(rxPin, txPin);

void setup()  {
  // define pin modes for tx, rx:
  pinMode(rxPin, INPUT);
  pinMode(txPin, OUTPUT);
  // set the data rate for the SoftwareSerial port
  mySerial.begin(9600);
}

void loop() {
  if (mySerial.available()>0){
  mySerial.read();
 }
}