Chapter 3 Programming Your Universal Counter for Remote Operation

Elements of SCPI Commands

 

Parameter Types

 

 

 

Table 3-1 contains explanations and examples of parameter types. Parameter

 

types may be numeric value, Boolean , literal, NRf, string, non-decimal numeric ,

 

or arbitrary block.

 

 

 

Table 3-1. Command and Query Parameter Types

 

 

 

TYPE

EXPLANATIONS AND EXAMPLES

 

 

 

<numeric value>

Accepts all commonly used decimal representation of numbers including optional signs, decimal

 

points, and scientific notation:

 

 

 

123, 123e2, -123, − 1.23e2, .123, 1.23e − 2, 1.23000E− 01.

 

Special cases include MINimum and MAXimum as follows:

 

MINimum selects minimum value

available.

 

MAXimum selects maximum value

available.

 

Queries using MINimum or MAXimum return the associated numeric value.

<Boolean>

Represents a single binary condition that is either true or false:

 

1 or ON, 0 or OFF (Query response returns only 1 or 0.)

 

An <NRf> is rounded to an integer. A non-zero value is interpreted as 1.

<literal>

Selects from a finite number of choices. These parameters use mnemonics to represent each valid

 

setting. An example is the INPut:COUPling AC DC command parameters (AC DC).

<NRf>

Flexible numeric representation. Only positive integers are used for NRf parameters in the Counter.

<string>

A string parameter is delimited by either single quotes or double quotes. Within the quotes, any

 

characters in the ASCII 7-bit code may be specified.

 

The following HP BASIC program statement sends a command containing a <string> parameter:

<non-decimal

OUTPUT 703;"FUNC ‘FREQ’"

 

 

 

 

 

numeric>

Format for specifying hexadecimal (#H1F), octal (#Q1077), and binary (#B10101011) numbers

 

using ASCII characters. May be used in :STATus subsystem commands.

<arbitrary block>

The syntax is a pound sign (#) followed by a non-zero digit representing the number of digits in the

 

subsequent decimal integer. The decimal integer specifies the number of

 

8-bit data bytes being sent. This is followed by the actual data. The terminator is a line feed

 

asserted with EOI. For example, for transmitting 8 bytes of data, the format could be:

 

 

 

 

The “2”indicates the number of digits that follow and the two digits “08”indicate the number of data bytes to be transmitted.

A zero-length block has the format: #0<new line>^EOI

<new line > is defined as a single ASCII-encoded byte corresponding to 10 decimal.

Programming Guide

3-11