xMessageBufferCreate()
[RTOS Message Buffer API]

message_buffer.h

 MessageBufferHandle_t xMessageBufferCreate( size_t xBufferSizeBytes );

Creates a new message buffer using dynamically allocated memory. See xMessageBufferCreateStatic() for a version that uses statically allocated memory (memory that is allocated at compile time).

configSUPPORT_DYNAMIC_ALLOCATION must be set to 1 or left undefined in FreeRTOSConfig.h for xMessageBufferCreate() to be available.

Message buffer functionality is enabled by including the FreeRTOS/source/stream_buffer.c source file in the build (as message buffers use stream buffers).

Parameters:

xBufferSizeBytes

The total number of bytes (not messages) the message buffer will be able to hold at any one time. When a message is written to the message buffer an additional sizeof( size_t ) bytes are also written to store the message's length. sizeof( size_t ) is typically 4 bytes on a 32-bit architecture, so on most 32-bit architectures a 10 byte message will take up 14 bytes of message buffer space.

Returns:

If NULL is returned, then the message buffer cannot be created because there is insufficient heap memory available for FreeRTOS to allocate the message buffer data structures and storage area. A non-NULL value being returned indicates that the message buffer has been created successfully - the returned value should be stored as the handle to the created message buffer.

Example usage:

void vAFunction( void )
{
MessageBufferHandle_t xMessageBuffer;
const size_t xMessageBufferSizeBytes = 100;

    /* Create a message buffer that can hold 100 bytes.  The memory used to hold
    both the message buffer structure and the data in the message buffer is
    allocated dynamically. */
    xMessageBuffer = xMessageBufferCreate( xMessageBufferSizeBytes );

    if( xMessageBuffer == NULL )
    {
        /* There was not enough heap memory space available to create the
        message buffer. */
    }
    else
    {
        /* The message buffer was created successfully and can now be used. */
    }
}