Adafruit_BusIO-ification for prettier, easier-to-maintain Arduino libraries
Ever since we’ve started writing/porting CircuitPython drivers for sensors and displays and such, we’ve fallen in love with `busio` – our generalized I2C and SPI API which takes out the repetitive parts of writing drivers: i2c address scanning, writing registers, reading chunks of data and concatenating it, dealing with repeated-start chips. After doing a bunch of drivers, we started looking at our Arduino libraries with an itchy nose. Sure they worked, but they’d been building up a decade of cruft and low-level interfacing.
So we’re doing a bit of a scrubbing for our older libraries, to ‘busio-ify’ them. Carter has been taking the lead and it is soooooooooo satisfying to look at the pull requests. For example, this one was approved today: https://github.com/adafruit/Adafruit_TCS34725/pull/47/files
(yes we use a stack single-element array for readability. yes we are well aware we could pass in the local’s address. yes its on purpose)
Because Adafruit_BusIO now does the annoying “we can only read/write 32 bytes at a time but sometimes we have a larger buffer” management, we have lovely diffs like this one from https://github.com/adafruit/Adafruit_AMG88xx/pull/24/files
We’re so happy to see this happen. Adafruit_BusIO handles I2C, hardware and software SPI with fast-io bitbanging. It also can do things like manage ‘registers’ and variable-size/offset bit-fields and will do all the error-prone math for you. There’s more memory used both flash and RAM, but that’s what good reusable-software engineering practice is all about!
Then, tune in to the Adafruit GitHub repo to see the libraries as they’re updated each week to BusIO.
Adafruit publishes a wide range of writing and video content, including interviews and reporting on the maker market and the wider technology world. Our standards page is intended as a guide to best practices that Adafruit uses, as well as an outline of the ethical standards Adafruit aspires to. While Adafruit is not an independent journalistic institution, Adafruit strives to be a fair, informative, and positive voice within the community – check it out here: adafruit.com/editorialstandards
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
