Advanced Usage

Avoiding Plaquette Style

If you don’t want to use Plaquette’s >> operator or auto-conversion of units to values (eg., if (input), input >> output) in favor of a more typical object-oriented programming style, you can avoid using these features by simply using Plaquette units’ get() and put() methods.

The get() method returns the current value of the unit:

float get()

The put() method sends a value to the unit and then returns the current value of the unit (the same that would be returned by get()):

float put(float value)

Additionally, digital input units such as DigitalIn, Metro, and Timer, have a boolean isOn() method that works for boolean true/false values, while digital output units such as DigitalOut have a boolean putOn(boolean value) method.

Here are some examples of how to adopt a classic object-oriented functions style instead of the Plaquette style.

Plaquette Style	Object-Oriented Style
`input >> output;`	`output.put(input.get());`
`digitalInput >> digitalOutput;`	`digitalOutput.putOn(digitalInput.isOn());`
`(2 * input) >> output;`	`output.put(2 * input.get());`
`!digitalInput >> digitalOutput;`	`digitalOutput.putOn(!digitalInput.isOn());`
`if (digitalInput)`	`if (digitalInput.isOn())`
`if (input < 0.4)`	`if (input.get() < 0.4)`
`input >> filter >> output;`	`output.put(filter.put(input.get()));`

Using Plaquette as an External Library

Seasoned Arduino coders might want to avoid rewriting their code using Plaquette’s builtin begin() and step() functions, or they may want to include Plaquette’s self-updating loop in a timer interrupt function. It is possible to do so by including the file PlaquetteLib.h instead of Plaquette.h.

After this step, you is then responsible for calling Plaquette.begin() at the beginning of the setup() function, and also to call Plaquette.step() at the beginning of the loop() function, or inside the interrupt.

Here is an example of our blinking code rewritten by using this feature:

#include <PlaquetteLib.h>

using namespace pq;

DigitalOut myLed(13);

SquareOsc myOsc(2.0, 0.5);

void setup() {
  Plaquette.begin();
}

void loop() {
  Plaquette.step();
  myOsc >> myLed;
}