Question

I am working on a simple (to get more complex later) program to read buttons from a pic24h in a microstick debugger device. I think I am initializing or reading the ports wrong, because some of the bits on the portb register, just seem to randomly come high. This code will eventually make errScreenPage = 1, even when I am not pressing the buttons. Why is this, and what can I do to make my code work?

My code is as follows:

    #include "p24HJ64GP502.h"

    int numErrors = 8;
    int moreErrorsPage = 0;
    int errScreenPage = 0;
    int maxErrScreenPage = 1;
    void setup();
    void checkBtn();

    int main(void)
    {
        setup(); //setup the pic
        wait(65535);

        while(1){
               checkBtn();
        }
        return 1;
    }
    void checkBtn(){
        if(PORTBbits.RB5 == 1 && errScreenPage != maxErrScreenPage){
            if(errScreenPage != 0 || numErrors == 0){
                errScreenPage += 1;
            }
        }
        if(PORTBbits.RB6 == 1 && errScreenPage == 0){
            errScreenPage = 1;
        }
    }
    void setup()
    {
        RPOR7 = 0x0708;
        SPI1CON1 = 0x007E;
        SPI1STAT = 0x8000;


        TRISBbits.TRISB4 = 0;
        TRISBbits.TRISB12 = 0;
        TRISBbits.TRISB13 = 0;
        LATBbits.LATB13 = 1;
        LATBbits.LATB12 = 1;
        LATBbits.LATB4 = 1;


        wait(1000);
    }

Answer 1

I figured it out, i needed to pull the pin low when it was not being pulled high.