Develop Reference

Arduino - Converting byte array to string/char array

I'm currently working on communication between devices using HID over a usb cable. I am sending a string that is UTF-8 encoded from an Android device, and would like to receive and read it on my Arduino Leonardo.
My problem is that I am unable to get the received message into any other type. I need to do a human readable string comparison as I'm sending a variety of commands to the Arduino. The IDE either has a type mismatch problem regardless of how I try to convert the received message. I've tried many different things but I will post one as an example. I'm sure there is something I missing that's keeping me from getting this!
int n;
n = RawHID.recv(buffer, 0); // 0 timeout = do not wait
if (msUntilNextSend > 2000) {
msUntilNextSend = msUntilNextSend - 2000;
// String mystr = "";
// byte charbuff[10];
//
// for (int i = 0; i < 64; i++)
// {
// mystr.concat((char) buffer[i]);
// }
//
// mystr.toCharArray(charbuff, 10);
char readin[64] = { ' ' };
readin = (char *)buffer;
String myString = String((char *)buffer);
if (strcmp(readin, "test") == 0)
{
String resp = "response";
resp.getBytes(buffer, 64);
n = RawHID.send(buffer, 100);
}
I've included some comments with bits of a different approach but as I mentioned, I have been unsuccessful in my attempts. Any insight is appreciated!

Writing bytes to a wav file adds background noise

I am reading values from a wav file; selecting only some of those values and writing them into another wav file (inorder to remove silence periods from the wav file). The problem is, that when I am creating this new wav file, it has background noise (which is not present in the original wav file). I am adding here the part of the code which is doing the file writing part:
private void writeToFile(String filePath) {
short nChannels = 1;
int sRate = 16000;
short bSamples = 16;
audioShorts = new short[size];
int nSamples = 0;
for(int i=0; i<size-1; i++) {
//audioShorts[i] = Short.reverseBytes((short)(zff[i]*0x8000));
if(slope[i] >= slopeThreshold) { // Voice region -- Should be written to output
audioShorts[nSamples] = Short.reverseBytes((short)(a[i]*0x8000));
audioShorts[nSamples+1] = Short.reverseBytes((short)(a[i+1]*0x8000));
nSamples += 2;
i++;
}
/*else
audioShorts[i] = 0;*/
}
finalShorts = new short[nSamples];
for(int i=0; i<nSamples; i++){
finalShorts[i] = audioShorts[i];
}
data = new byte[finalShorts.length*2];
ByteBuffer buffer = ByteBuffer.wrap(data);
ShortBuffer sbuf = buffer.asShortBuffer();
sbuf.put(finalShorts);
data = buffer.array();
Log.d("Data length------------------------------", Integer.toString(data.length));
RandomAccessFile randomAccessWriter;
try {
randomAccessWriter = new RandomAccessFile(filePath, "rw");
randomAccessWriter.setLength(0); // Set file length to 0, to prevent unexpected behaviour in case the file already existed
randomAccessWriter.writeBytes("RIFF");
randomAccessWriter.writeInt(Integer.reverseBytes(36+data.length)); // File length
randomAccessWriter.writeBytes("WAVE");
randomAccessWriter.writeBytes("fmt ");
randomAccessWriter.writeInt(Integer.reverseBytes(16)); // Sub-chunk size, 16 for PCM
randomAccessWriter.writeShort(Short.reverseBytes((short) 1)); // AudioFormat, 1 for PCM
randomAccessWriter.writeShort(Short.reverseBytes(nChannels));// Number of channels, 1 for mono, 2 for stereo
randomAccessWriter.writeInt(Integer.reverseBytes(sRate)); // Sample rate
randomAccessWriter.writeInt(Integer.reverseBytes(sRate*bSamples*nChannels/8)); // Byte rate, SampleRate*NumberOfChannels*BitsPerSample/8
randomAccessWriter.writeShort(Short.reverseBytes((short)(nChannels*bSamples/8))); // Block align, NumberOfChannels*BitsPerSample/8
randomAccessWriter.writeShort(Short.reverseBytes(bSamples)); // Bits per sample
randomAccessWriter.writeBytes("data");
randomAccessWriter.writeInt(Integer.reverseBytes(data.length)); // No. of samples
randomAccessWriter.write(data);
randomAccessWriter.close();
} catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
// TODO Auto-generated catch block
e.printStackTrace();
} catch (IOException e) {
// TODO Auto-generated catch block
e.printStackTrace();
}
}

Your code snippet leaves some details out (like what slope and slopeThreshold are), so treat this answer as a suggestion only.
In general, this kind of chopping of audio data will introduce noise. It depends on where the cut happens. If the last sample before a cut is identical to the first one after it, you're safe, but otherwise you will introduce a click.
If the cuts are infrequent, you will be hearing individual clicks but if the chopping happens often enough, it might sound like continuous noise.
To do this without clicks, you would need to add a short fade out and fade in around each cut.
EDIT: try removing the "if (slope[i] >= slopeThreshold)" condition and see if the noise disappears. If so, the noise is very likely a result of what I described. Otherwise, you probably have some error with the various byte conversions.

Instead of:
data = new byte[finalShorts.length*2];
ByteBuffer buffer = ByteBuffer.wrap(data);
ShortBuffer sbuf = buffer.asShortBuffer();
sbuf.put(finalShorts);
data = buffer.array();
would not it be necessary to convert from short [] to byte [] ?
data = shortToBytes(finalShorts);
public byte [] shortToBytes(short [] input){
int short_index, byte_index;
int iterations = input.length;
byte [] buffer = new byte[input.length * 2];
short_index = byte_index = 0;
for(/*NOP*/; short_index != iterations; /*NOP*/)
{
buffer[byte_index] = (byte) (input[short_index] & 0x00FF);
buffer[byte_index + 1] = (byte) ((input[short_index] & 0xFF00) >> 8);
++short_index; byte_index += 2;
}
return buffer;
}
This work for me.

Why does SKIA not use a custom FilterInputStream?

I'm trying to decode a bitmap from an extended FilterInputStream. I have to perform on-the-fly byte manipulation to the image data to provide a decodable image to SKIA, however it seems like SKIA ignores my custom InputStream and initializes one of its own...
When I run my test application, attempting to load in a 2mb large JPEG results in ObfuscatedInputStream.read([]) being called only once from BitmapFactory.decodeStream()
It seems like once the type of file is determined from the first 16kb of data retrieved from my ObfuscatedInputStream it initializes its own native stream and reads from that, effectively rendering all changes I make to how the input stream should work useless...
Here is the buffered read function in my extended FilterInputStream class. The Log.d at the top of the function is only executed once.
#Override
public int read(byte b[], int off, int len) throws IOException
{
Log.d(TAG, "called read[] with aval + " + super.available() + " len " + len);
int numBytesRead = -1;
if (pos == 0)
{
numBytesRead = fill(b);
if (numBytesRead < len)
{
int j;
numBytesRead += ((j = super.read(b, numBytesRead, len - numBytesRead)) == -1) ? 0 : j ;
}
}
else
numBytesRead = super.read(b, 0, len);
if (numBytesRead > -1)
pos += numBytesRead;
Log.d(TAG, "actually read " + numBytesRead);
return numBytesRead;
}
Has anyone ever encountered this issue? It seems like the only way to get my desired behavior is to rewrite portions of the SKIA library... I would really like to know what the point of the InputStream parameter is if the native implementation initializes a stream of its own...

turns out that it wasnt able to detect that it was an actual image from the first 1024 bytes it takes in. If it doesnt detect that the file is an actual image, it will not bother decoding the rest, hence only having read[] called once.

Android byte array to string to byte array

All I need is convert byte[] to String. Then do something with that string and convert back to byte[] array. But in this testing I'm just convert byte[] to string and convert back to byte[] and the result is different.
to convert byte[] to string by using this:
byte[] byteEntity = EntityUtils.toByteArray(entity);
String s = new String(byteEntity,"UTF-8");
Then i tried:
byte[] byteTest = s.getBytes("UTF-8");
Then i complared it:
if (byteEntity.equals(byteTest) Log.i("test","equal");
else Log.i("test","diff");
So the result is different.
I searched in stackoverflow about this but it doesn't match my case. The point is my data is .png picture so the string converted is unreadable. Thanks in advance.

Solved
Using something like this.
byte[] mByteEntity = EntityUtils.toByteArray(entity);
byte[] mByteDecrypted = clip_xor(mByteEntity,"your_key".getBytes());
baos.write(mByteDecrypted);
InputStream in = new ByteArrayInputStream(baos.toByteArray());
and this is function clip_xor
protected byte[] clip_xor(byte[] data, byte[] key) {
int num_key = key.length;
int num_data = data.length;
try {
if (num_key > 0) {
for (int i = 0, j = 0; i < num_data; i++, j = (j + 1)
% num_key) {
data[i] ^= key[j];
}
}
} catch (Exception ex) {
Log.i("error", ex.toString());
}
return data;
}
Hope this will useful for someone face same problem. Thanks you your all for helping me solve this.
Special thanks for P'krit_s

primitive arrays are actually Objects (that's why they have .equals method) but they do not implement the contract of equality (hashCode and equals) needed for comparison. You cannot also use == since according to docs, .getBytes will return a new instance byte[]. You should use Arrays.equals(byteEntity, byteTest) to test equality.

Have a look to the answer here.
In that case my target was transform a png image in a bytestream to display it in embedded browser (it was a particular case where browser did not show directly the png).
You may use the logic of that solution to convert png to byte and then to String.
Then reverse the order of operations to get back to the original file.

Android/PHP - Encryption and Decryption

I'm struggeling with code from this page: http://www.androidsnippets.com/encrypt-decrypt-between-android-and-php
I want to send data from a server to an Android application and vice versa, but it should be sent as an encrypted string. However, I manage to encrypt and decrypt the string in PHP. But on Android the application crashes with the following error message when decrypting:
java.lang.Exception: [decrypt] unable to parse ' as integer.
This error occours here in the for-loop:
public static byte[] hexToBytes(String str) {
if (str==null) {
return null;
} else if (str.length() < 2) {
return null;
} else {
int len = str.length() / 2;
byte[] buffer = new byte[len];
for (int i=0; i<len; i++) {
buffer[i] = (byte) Integer.parseInt(str.substring(i*2,i*2+2),16);
}
System.out.println("Buffer: " + buffer);
return buffer;
}
}
This is by the way the string that should be decrypted: f46d86e65fe31ed46920b20255dd8ea6

You're talking about encrypting and decrypting, but you're showing code which simply turns numeric bytes (such as 0x4F) into strings (such as "4F") -- which may be relevant to your transfer of data (if you cannot transfer binary format), but completely unrelated to encryption/decryption.
Since the Android code you have contains only a single Integer parse, have you examined the input you're giving it? str.substring(i*2,i*2+2) apparently contains data other than [0-9A-F] when the exception occurs. You should start by examining the string you've received and comparing it to what you sent, to make sure they agree and they only contain hexadecimal characters.
Edit -- passing the string "f46d86e65fe31ed46920b20255dd8ea6" through your hexToBytes() function works flawlessly. Your input is probably not what you think it is.