Agilent Technologies N5700 manual Queries, Common Commands, Command Terminators

4 Operating the Power Supply Remotely

In the previous examples, the upper-case letters indicate the abbreviated spelling for the keyword. For shorter program lines, you can send the abbreviated form. For better program readability, you can send the long form. For example, VOLT and VOLTage are both acceptable forms. You can use upper- or lower-case letters. Therefore, VOLTAGE, Volt, and volt are all acceptable. Other forms, such as VOL and VOLTAG, generate an error.

Queries

You can query the current value of most commands by adding a question mark to the command (VOLTage?, VOLTage:TRIGgered?). If a query contains a parameter, place the query indicator at the end of the last keyword. Observe the following precautions with queries:

Add a blank space between the query indicator (?) and any subsequent parameter. (VOLTage:TRIGgered? MAX)

Set up the proper number of variables for the returned data.

Read back all the results of a query before sending another command to the power supply. Otherwise a Query Interrupted error will occur and the unreturned data will be lost.

Common Commands

Common commands generally control overall power supply functions, such as reset, status, and synchronization. All common commands consist of a three-letter mnemonic preceded by an asterisk: *RST *IDN? *SRE 8

You can combine common commands with subsystem commands in the same message. Use semicolons to separate the common command from the subsystem commands. Common commands do not affect the command path; you may insert them anywhere in the message.

VOLTage:TRIGgered 10;:INITiate;*TRG

OUTPut OFF;*RCL 2;OUTPut ON

Command Terminators

A terminator informs SCPI that it has reached the end of a command.

Three permitted command terminators are:

newline (<NL>), which is ASCII decimal 10 or hex 0A.

end or identify (<END>)

both of the above (<NL><END>).

In the examples of this guide, the message terminator is assumed.

60 Series N5700 User’s Guide