Arduino serial read

[dr pepper]

If I got this right:
If I have some data in the serial buffer, then I go serial.read the processor will read the first byte of data in the buffer, executing serial.read successive times reads the next byte and the next.
So there must be a pointer, is there a way I can reset said pointer to zero.
I want to mod some existing software and make it 'think' the serial buffer hasnt been messed with.

 

[Pommie]

Can't you do

while(Serial.available())
      dummy = Serial.read();

Mike.
Edit, you can also do Serial.flush() to wait until the output buffer is empty. In an earlier version this also cleared the input buffer but not any more.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

All the source code is freely available, and there's probably already a function call to do exactly that - it's a pretty standard routine for an interrupt driven serial library.

Have a look here:

https://github.com/arduino/ArduinoCore-avr/blob/master/cores/arduino/HardwareSerial.h

Of the associated .CPP file.

 

[dr pepper]

There isnt a function call to clear the pointer but there is an rxbuffer pointer in the .h file, but its a protected not a public variable.
There are several routines in my code that use serial, all copied & pasted from other programs I've bodged that only had one routine that looked at serial, pom's idea is a way to do it, use a dummy array for the incomming serial, only thing is I'd have to modify every function using serial, not the end of the world I spose.