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How to read ESP32 NVS value into std::string

In our previous post, we discussed How to get the length / size of NVS value on ESP32. Based on that, we can read a NVS value into a std::string.

Strategy

  1. Determine size of value in NVS
  2. Allocate temporary buffer of the determined size
  3. Read value from NVS into temporary buffer
  4. Create std::string from value
  5. Cleanup temporary buffer

Utility function to read NVS value as std::string

In case the key does not exist in NVS, this function will return the empty string ("").

#include <nvs.h>
#include <string>

std::string ReadNVSValueAsStdString(nvs_handle_t nvs, const char* key) {
    /**
     * Strategy:
     *  1. Determine size of value in NVS
     *  2. Allocate temporary buffer of determined size
     *  3. Read value from NVS into temporary buffer
     *  4. Create std::string from value
     *  5. Cleanup
     */
    // Step 1: Get size of key
    esp_err_t err;
    size_t value_size = 0;
    if((err = nvs_get_str(nvs, _key.c_str(), nullptr, &value_size)) != ESP_OK) {
        if(err == ESP_ERR_NVS_NOT_FOUND) {
            // Not found, no error
            return "";
        } else {
            printf("Failed to get size of NVS key %s: %s\r\n", key, esp_err_to_name(err));
            return;
        }
    }
    // Step 2: Allocate temporary buffer to read from
    char* buf = (char*)malloc(value_size);
    // Step 3: Read value into temporary buffer.
    esp_err_t err;
    if((err = nvs_get_str(nvs, _key.c_str(), buf, &value_size)) != ESP_OK) {
        // "Doesn't exist" has already been handled before, so this is an actual error.
        // We assume that the value did not change between reading the size (step 1) and now.
        // In case that assumption is value, this will fail with ESP_ERR_NVS_INVALID_LENGTH.
        // This is extremely unlikely in all usage scenarios, however.
        printf("Failed to read NVS key %s: %s\r\n", key, esp_err_to_name(err));
        free(buf);
        return "";
    }
    // Step 4: Make string
    std::string value = std::string(buf, value_size);
    // Step 5: cleanup
    free(buf);
    
    return value;
}

Usage example

This assumes that you have setup myNvs as we have shown in our previous post How to initialize NVS on ESP32

std::string value = ReadNVSValueAsStdString(myNvs, "MyKey");

C++17 optimizations

Starting from C++17, you can possibly create a std::string directly instead of using the temporary buffer, since there is an overload of .data() that returns a non-const pointer - so you can write directly to the std::string’s buffer.

However, since my PlatformIO-based toolchain currently doesn’t support that, I have not written that code yet.