Instruction manual

Chapter 3 Programming Your Counter for Remote Operation
Elements of SCPI Commands
3-16 Programming Guide
3
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, and 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.
<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 BASIC statement sends a command containing a <string> parameter:
OUTPUT 703;"FUNC ‘FREQ’"
<non-decimal
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.
<new line><8 bytes of data>2# 08 ^EOI
TerminatorActual data
Number of digits
that follow
Number of bytes
to be transmitted