User`s guide

138 Agilent VISA User’s Guide
Glossary
programming alias
See VISA alias.
refresh
In Connection Expert, the action that invokes the discovery
mechanism for detecting interfaces and instruments connected to
your computer. The explorer view is then refreshed to show the
current, discovered state of your test system.
register
An address location that contains a value that represents the state of
hardware, or that can be written into to cause hardware to perform a
specified action or to enter a specified state.
resource (or resource instance)
In VISA, an implementation of a resource class (in object-oriented
terms, an instance of a resource class). For example, an instrument is
represented by a resource instance.
resource class
The definition of a particular resource type (a class in object-oriented
terms). For example, the VISA Instrument Control resource classes
define how to create a resource to control a particular capability of a
device.
resource descriptor
A string, such as a VISA resource descriptor, that specifies the I/O
address of a device.
SCPI
Standard Commands for Programmable Instrumentation: a standard
set of commands, defined by the SCPI Consortium, to control
programmable test and measurement devices in instrumentation
systems.