Operation Manual

Product Reference Guide 203

Appendix C

Programming for Expert Users

This document is addressed to expert users who are familiar with software programming

languages and want to define a personalized code formatting. The provided programming

language allows creating either simple or complex formatting expressions by means of the

basic functions connected together through the following operators: (, ), -, +.

The syntax to be used to transmit the expressions to the

PowerScan™ M8500 is the

following:

$+ELB<n>formatting expression<ETX>$-

where:

• <n> is a number in the range 1-5 corresponding to the format to be defined;

• <ETX> is the conventional character used as terminator of the command;

• the formatting expression uses ASCII characters when containin

text strings. For this

reason, the string must be inserted between two quotation marks. The following

example shows the ASCII conversion of the "ABC" string:

$+ELB1}414243+#DS^C$-.

Function Description

All the functions and conventions to be used within the formatting expressions are listed

below:

FUNCTION NAME DESCRIPTION

FSTR Searches for a defined substring by its starting and ending string.

FLSTR Searches for a defined substring by its starting string and its length.

SSTR Extracts a defined substring from the original string.

FPOS Searches for a position of a defined substring within the original string.

LSTR Returns a string length.

ISTR Insert a substring in the original string.

RSTR

Substitutes a defined substring contained in the original string with a

new one