Actionscript 3 and sorting incoming bytes from an arduino - arrays

Question

im new to using action script so i apologies if this wont make sense, the issue iam having is that the incoming bytes from my arduino are not being stored properly in an array. The bytes come in one at a time from my arduino and will be stored in an array in as3.
i have two values SF-F8-001, SF-F8-002 and SF-F8-003 etc... when i trace the incoming bytes i get this:
S
F
-
F
8
-
0
0
1
so when i look at that i realized i needed an array to store the byte as they come in however i have tried many different things but it hasnt worked
however this code below seems to get me close to my desired result
import flash.events.*;
import flash.net.Socket;
import flash.utils.ByteArray;
import flash.net.URLLoader;
import flash.net.URLRequest;
import flash.net.URLVariables;
import flash.net.URLLoaderDataFormat;
import flash.net.URLRequestMethod;
var ary:Array = new Array();
var bar_grab:Array = new Array();
var array:Array = new Array();
trace("__AS3 Example__");
var socket:Socket = new Socket("localhost",5331);
socket.addEventListener(ProgressEvent.SOCKET_DATA, socketDataHandler);
function socketDataHandler(event:ProgressEvent):void
{
var str:String = String(socket.readUTFBytes(socket.bytesAvailable));
var b:String;
bar_grab.push(str);
b = bar_grab.join("");
boxtwo.text = b;
}
this code gets me this
SF-F8-001SF-F8-002SF-F8-003 etc...
however the result iam looking for is this
SF-F8-001,SF-F8-002,SF-F8-003 etc....
so if anyone could help me sort this out i will be grateful
thank you

Answer 1

If you know a priori how many characters each item will consist of you could read everything to string and get each individual item like that:
//Main string containing all items
var allString:String = "123456789";
//Number of chars in of item
var charsInItem = 3;
var item:String;
var index:int;
var resultArray:Array = new Array();
for(var i:int = 0; i < allString.length/charsInItem; i++)
{
index= i*charsInItem;
//traces name of one item
item = allString.slice(index, index+charsInItem);
resultArray.push(item);
trace(item);
}
//Output:
//123
//456
//789
If you don't know a number of chars in one item or it varies, I would suggest tweaking Arduino code and putting some sort of a marker in between every item. Like say a comma (,). Then your string would look something like this: "item1,item2,longerItem3". And you could split that string into array like that:
var array:Array = new Array();
var allString:String = "item1,item2,longerItem3";
//This splts string into array items using comma (,) as a seperator
array = allString.split(",");
for(var i:int = 0; i < array.length; i++)
{
//trace every array element
trace(array[i]);
}
//Output:
//item1
//item2
//longerItem3
I should add that even if you know a number of chars in one item I would still suggest using method nr.2.