Input/Output - Advanced

shiftOut()

Shifts out a byte of data one bit at a time on a specified pin. Starts from either the most (i.e. the leftmost) or least (rightmost) significant bit. Each bit is written in turn to a data pin, after which a clock pin is pulsed (taken high, then low) to indicate that the bit is available.

NOTE: if you're interfacing with a device that's clocked by rising edges, you'll need to make sure that the clock pin is low before the call to shiftOut(), e.g. with a call to digitalWrite(clockPin, LOW).

This is a software implementation; see also the SPI function, which provides a hardware implementation that is faster but works only on specific pins.

// SYNTAX
shiftOut(dataPin, clockPin, bitOrder, value)

// EXAMPLE USAGE

// Use digital pins D0 for data and D1 for clock
int dataPin = D0;
int clock = D1;

uint8_t data = 50;

setup() {
    // Set data and clock pins as OUTPUT pins before using shiftOut()
    pinMode(dataPin, OUTPUT);
    pinMode(clock, OUTPUT);

    // shift out data using MSB first
    shiftOut(dataPin, clock, MSBFIRST, data);

    // Or do this for LSBFIRST serial
    shiftOut(dataPin, clock, LSBFIRST, data);
}

loop() {
    // nothing to do
}

shiftOut() takes four arguments, 'dataPin': the pin on which to output each bit, clockPin: the pin to toggle once the dataPin has been set to the correct value, bitOrder: which order to shift out the bits; either MSBFIRST or LSBFIRST (Most Significant Bit First, or, Least Significant Bit First) and value: the data (byte) to shift out.

shiftOut() does not return anything.