Unable receive character properly in UART

Question

I am trying to send and receive character using UART (GPIO14 as Tx & GPIO15 as Rx). I can transmit character successfully which I can check on minicom. Now I have short my RX and Tx pin so that I can receive whatever I transmit. I can see in my code that on sending character 'a' I am receiving a character, but I cannot print its exact value . Here is my code:-

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <fcntl.h>
#include <termios.h>

int main(void) {

    char *port;
port = "/dev/ttyAMA0";
    struct termios serial;
    char tab='a';

    printf("Opening %s\n", port);

    int fd = open(port, O_RDWR | O_NOCTTY | O_NDELAY);

    if (fd == -1) {
        perror(port);
        return -1;
    }

    if (tcgetattr(fd, &serial) < 0) {
        perror("Getting configuration");
        return -1;
    }
 // Set up Serial Configuration
    serial.c_iflag = 0;
    serial.c_oflag = 0;
    serial.c_lflag = 0;
    serial.c_cflag = 0;

    serial.c_cc[VMIN] = 0;
    serial.c_cc[VTIME] = 0;

    serial.c_cflag = B9600 | CS8 | CREAD;

    tcsetattr(fd, TCSANOW, &serial); // Apply configuration

    // Attempt to send and receive
    printf("Sending: %c\n", tab);

int wcount = write(fd, &tab,1);
    if (wcount < 0) {
        perror("Write");
        return -1;
    }
    else {
        printf("Sent successfully\n");
    }
int rcount = read(fd,&tab,1);
    if (rcount < 0) {
        perror("Read");
        return -1;
    }
    else {
        printf("Received %d characters\n", rcount);
    }

    printf("Received: %c\n", tab);

    close(fd);
}

Here is my output for this code:- Mostly I got:-

Opening /dev/ttyAMA0
Sending: a
Sent successfully
Received 1 characters
Received:

And rarely (around 1 out of 20 times) I got random character like this:-

Opening /dev/ttyAMA0
Sending: a
Sent successfully
Received 1 characters
Received: y

*note:- when I received some proper character (in rare case) it is not always 'y'. I can be any thing like 'y' , 'n' , 'p' etc.

So,can any one tell me where is the problem.

Answer 1

It is much easier to use the wiringSerial module from wiringPi, but if you must do it the hard way tab should be a buffer e.g. char tab[128] not a single char.

It looks like you are sending random junk and storing it who knows where.

NOTE You should use cfsetispeed to set baud rate read man termios