How does the Arduino send more than 6 bytes via I2C

Question

I have been working with the wire library (I2C) to send data from one Arduino to another. I read that the Arduino can only send 6 bytes per cycle, but I have been able to transfer much larger strings. This code works without error:

  Wire.beginTransmission(4); // transmit to device #4

  for(int i = 0; i < 20; i ++){
    char rand = random(65, 100);
    Wire.write(rand); 
  }

  Wire.endTransmission();    // stop transmitting

How is this possible? It seams that 32 characters can be sent without trouble.

I read this here: http://arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/MasterReader

Arduino 1, the Master, is programmed to request, and then read, 6 bytes of data sent from the uniquely addressed Slave Arduino.

Now that I look at this again (after reading the responses) I think that the limit was set in the code sample.

Answer 1

There is no reason to believe there is a 6 byte limit.

The Arduino Reference makes no mention of a 6 byte limit.

The Wire.cpp defines 'txBuffer[BUFFER_LENGTH];' where BUFFER_LENGTH = 32 (defined in Wire.h). The maximum is 32 bytes, just as you noticed.