Agilent Technologies E4406A VSA manual SCPI Termination and Separator Syntax, SCPI Language Basics

Programming Fundamentals

SCPI Language Basics

SCPI Termination and Separator Syntax

A terminator must be provided when an instrument is controlled using RS-232. There are several issues to be understood about choosing the proper SCPI terminator and separator when this is the case. There is no current SCPI standard for RS-232. Although one intent of SCPI is to be interface independent, <END> is only defined for IEEE 488 operation. At the time of this writing, the RS-232 terminator issue was in the process of being addressed in IEEE standard 1174.

A semicolon (;) is not a SCPI terminator, it is a separator. The purpose of the separator is to queue multiple commands or queries in order to obtain multiple actions and/or responses. Make sure that you do not attempt to use the semicolon as a terminator when using RS-232 control.

All binary trace and response data is terminated with <NL><END>, as defined in Section 8.5 of IEEE Standard 488.2-1992, IEEE Standard Codes, Formats, Protocols and Common Commands for Use with ANSI/IEEE Std 488.1-1987. New York, NY, 1992.

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