User manual

Section 13: Instrument Control Library (ICL) Series 3700 System Switch/Multimeter Reference Manual
13-112 3700S-901-01 Rev. C / July 2008
dmm.appendbuffer()
Remarks
The first parameter (reading buffer name) represents the reading buffer to be
saved. The second (filename) is the filename of file to append reading buffer data
to on USB flash drive. The third parameter is optional and indicates how the date and
time information from the buffer should be saved. For options that save more than one
item of time information, each item is comma delimited. For example, the default
format will have <date>, <time>, and <fractional seconds> for each
reading, separated by commas.
This command appends data to an existing file or creates the file, if it doesn't exist.
Because it is appending data, it does not include the header information like the
dmm.savebuffer() (on page 7-10) command. This command doesn't care about the
data format of existing data because it only appends data. Therefore, the index column
entry starts at 1 for each append operation. Like the savebuffer command, it appends
all data in the reading buffer specified.
Errors are generated if the reading buffer does not exist or is not a DMM buffer, or if
the destination filename is not specified correctly. The file extension .csv is
appended to the filename if necessary. Any specified file extension other than .csv
generates errors.
Valid destination filename examples:
dmm.appendbuffer('mybuffer', '/usb1/mydata')
dmm.appendbuffer('mybuffer', '/usb1/mydata.csv')
Invalid destination filename examples:
dmm.appendbuffer('mybuffer', '/usb1/mydata.')
-Invalid extension due to period by no following letters for extension.
dmm.appendbuffer('mybuffer', '/usb1/mydata.txt')
-Invalid extension. Use .csv or do not specify (no period)
dmm.appendbuffer('mybuffer', '/usb1/mydata.txt.csv')
-invalid extension because 2 periods specified (mydata_txt.csv would be
correct).
NOTE The reading buffer files saved to the USB flash drive will always have an
extension of .csv
Example
To append readings from valid DMM buffer named mybuffer with default time
information to a file named mydata.csv on the USB flash drive:
dmm.appendbuffer('mybuffer', '/usb1/mydata.csv')
To append readings from mybuffer with relative time stamps to a file named
mydatarel.csv on the USB flash drive:
dmm.appendbuffer('mybuffer', '/usb1/mydatarel.csv',
dmm.buffer.SAVE_RELATIVE_TIME)