I am stumped as to what to do.  I am trying to read in a message (only
10 bytes MAX) in hex, and then do something with it (the 3rd byte has
the length of the data, the 4th-? bytes have the data, etc).  I am
using the ICC430 compiler.

I've tried to use strcmp() to compare the packets, since I know what
they will look like, with no success.  I have created a buffer, but
don't know how to start parsing it.  I have also tried case
statements, but don't think I did them correctly.

What is the best way to do this?  I'm familier with receiving just 1
byte and testing it, but not multiple.  Thanks! 

Hi,
i don't know how you are receiving your seril data, i often use rx 
interrupt to do that so if you are using a protocol like
SOH Address STX Data0... Data n EOT

you could use a switch instruction and a data received counter in 
order to recognize wich byte are arriving, something like this

 switch(Rx_counter)
  {
   case 0:
    if(Rxbuf0==SOH) Rx_counter=1;
    break;
   case 1:
    if(Rxbuf0=dress) Rx_counter=2;
    break;
   case 2:
    if(Rxbuf0==STX) 
     {
      Rx_counter=3;
      Data_byte=0;
     }
    break;
   case 3:
    Buffer[Data_byte]=RXBUF0;
    if(++Data_byte==BUFFER_END) Rx_counter=4;
    break;
   case 4:
    if(Rxbuf0==EOT) Rx_counter=0;
    break;
  }
or an equivalent assembler code, this is a simple way to recover 
serial info, of course you can count bytes and put them in a buffer 
first and then decode.

probably you need a time out timer to reinitialize the counter when 
you lost the serial link 

hope this give you some idea 

Alexander

--- In msp430@msp4..., "santabarbara350z" 
<santabarbara350z@...> wrote:
>
> I am stumped as to what to do.  I am trying to read in a message 
(only
> 10 bytes MAX) in hex, and then do something with
it (the 3rd byte has
> the length of the data, the 4th-? bytes have the data, etc).  I am
> using the ICC430 compiler.
> 
> I've tried to use strcmp() to compare the packets, since I know what
> they will look like, with no success.  I have created a buffer, but
> don't know how to start parsing it.  I have also tried case
> statements, but don't think I did them correctly.
> 
> What is the best way to do this?  I'm familier with receiving just 1
> byte and testing it, but not multiple.  Thanks!
>