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For a project of mine I have always wanted to build an electronic load and I am mostly done. However I have found myself stuck at one part that I thought would be simple but has thus only caused headache.

The problem is that I have a keypad connecting along with a TFT display to an Arduino. I want to enter for example my current for the electronic load and display the value that I set on my display. I have tried the simple code for keypads that is available on tutorials all over the web but what happens is that it displays the key I press but if I press another one it erases the first and displays the second in the same spot. I want to be able to have 4 or 5 digits that can all show up in order. I have found some different code and modified it. I can now display multiple digits but the issue is that if I press for example 4 a 4 will show up but if I press a 5 another 4 will show up and then if I press a 5 again then a 5 will show up on and on.

Additionally it resets the screen even though I don't have a reset function in my code. So every time I press a key the screen will reset to white and then show the numbers. If anyone has time to help me out it would be greatly appreciated.

EDIT: Thank you for everyone's help and I have solved the problem. However I haven't found a way to incorporate a decimal point into it. This code is the code that works except for the decimal point.

  #include <Keypad.h>
#include <MCUFRIEND_kbv.h>
MCUFRIEND_kbv tft;

String v1;
String num;

const byte ROWS = 4;
const byte COLS = 4;

char hexaKeys[ROWS][COLS] = {
  {'1', '4', '7', '*'},
  {'2', '5', '8', '0'},
  {'3', '6', '9', '.'},
  {'A', 'B', 'C', 'D'}
};

byte rowPins[ROWS] = {31, 22, 23, 24};
byte colPins[COLS] = {25, 26, 27, 28};

Keypad kpd = Keypad( makeKeymap(hexaKeys), rowPins, colPins, ROWS, COLS );

#define BLUE    0x001F
#define WHITE   0xFFFF

#define DATAOUT 11//MOSI
#define DATAIN 12//MISO 
#define SPICLOCK  13//sck
#define SLAVESELECT0 10//ss

void setup()
{
  uint16_t id = tft.readID();
  tft.begin(id);
  tft.setRotation(1);
  tft.fillScreen(WHITE);
  tft.setTextColor(BLUE, WHITE);
}


void loop() {
  v1 = GetNumber();
  v1.toInt();
}
String GetNumber()
{
  char key = kpd.getKey();
  // while (key != '#')
  {
    switch (key)

    {
      case NO_KEY:
        break;

      case '0': case '1': case '2': case '3': case '4':
      case '5': case '6': case '7': case '8': case '9':
        num = num + key;
        tft.setTextSize(5);
        tft.setCursor(10, 50);
        tft.print(num);
        break;
    }
    key = kpd.getKey();
  }
  return num;

}
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  • Print your number tft.print(num); AFTER you append the key num=num + key, not before.
    – hcheung
    May 22, 2020 at 0:36
  • Your String num; is a local variable within the function, it get out of the scope when exit the function, you want to keep the value, declare it as a global variable.
    – hcheung
    May 22, 2020 at 0:38
  • do not combine keypress handling with display handling ... pressing a key should only update the value of a variable, nothing else ... the display function should only get its data from the variable
    – jsotola
    May 22, 2020 at 1:12
  • i think that you are not paying attention to what is in your code ... you complain about the screen turning white, and yet you have code like tft.fillScreen(WHITE); ... don't you think that you should be running the tft setup code like textColor and textSize only once?
    – jsotola
    May 22, 2020 at 1:20
  • Thank you for all who helped me. It is now working perfect. I only have one question: How would I implement a decimal point? I can't simply make another case for it because that would have to be a number. This is my new code
    – athoe
    May 22, 2020 at 3:43

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