Parsing serial string data into an array (VVVV to Arduino) - parsing

Question

I'm currently working on an arduino project at University. Basically what I am trying to do is send a string of data from VVVV to arduino, however I need to parse the data into an array and I have absolutely no idea how to do this!
The string being sent from VVVV is something like this; U,c,R,|,W,H,P and I need each of those values to be written to a specific servo each time, so value 1 need to go to servo 1, and so on.
Here is my code at the moment, I realize its coded pretty badly, and I do intend to make to make it more efficient when I have worked out how to parse the data.
#include <Servo.h>
Servo servo1;
Servo servo2;
Servo servo3;
Servo servo4;
char array1[4] = { '0', '0', '0', '0'}; //array for midi variables
void setup()
{
// begin the serial communication
Serial.begin(9600);
servo1.attach(2);
servo2.attach(3);
servo3.attach(4);
servo4.attach(5);
}
void loop(){
while (Serial.available() == 0) {
array1[0] = 0;
array1[1] = 0;
array1[2] = 0;
array1[3] = 0;
}
{
// check if data has been sent from the computer
if (Serial.available() >= 4) {
for ( int i = 0; i < 4; i++)
array1[i] = Serial.read();
}
Serial.print(array1[0]);
Serial.print(array1[1]);
Serial.print(array1[2]);
Serial.print(array1[3]);
servo1.write(array1[0]);
servo2.write(array1[1]);
servo3.write(array1[2]);
servo4.write(array1[3]);
}
}
Edit - I should probably mention that I'm eventually looking to use 7 servos, but for the moment I'm just using 4 in my circuit. Also, when I upload this patch and enable VVVV, the arduino just disconnects.

Answer 1

#opc0de This serial issue has cause a lot of confusion. Including to myself. Possibly similar issue here.
I recently dabbled into this. The Arduino automatically resets when it receives serial
communication from most things other than the Arduino IDE. This is why
you can send from the IDE but not node.js.
I have an Uno and put a capacitor between Reset and Ground.Here's a
page with some good info on the subject. Good luck.
http://arduino.cc/playground/Main/DisablingAutoResetOnSerialConnection

Answer 2

if (Serial.available() > 3)
{
for (int i=0; i < 4 ; i++)
{
array[i] = Serial.read();
}
Serial.flush();
}
Hope it helps !

Answer 3

If you want to assign the value as soon as received, you can do this:
if(Serial.available() >= 3) {
servo1.write(Serial.read());
servo2.write(Serial.read());
servo3.write(Serial.read());
servo4.write(Serial.read());
Serial.flush();
}
If you want to have the received values stored on the array to do something more later, then:
if(Serial.available() >= 3) {
for(i = 0; i < 4; i ++) {
array[i] = Serial.read();
}
Serial.flush();
}