Agilent Technologies Infiniium 8000A, Programmer'S Reference Manual

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Waveform Commands
FORMat
FORMat
Command :WAVeform:FORMat {ASCii | BINary | BYTE | WORD}
The :WAVeform:FORMat command sets the data transmission mode for
waveform data output. This command controls how the data is formatted when
it is sent from the oscilloscope, and pertains to all waveforms. The default
format is ASCii.
Selecting a Format
ASCii
ASCii-formatted data consists of waveform data values converted to the
currently selected units, such as volts, and are output as a string of ASCII
characters with each value separated from the next value by a comma. The
values are formatted in floating point engineering notation. For example:
8.0836E+2,8.1090E+2,...,-3.1245E-3
The ASCii format does not send out the header information indicating the
number of bytes being downloaded.
In ASCii format:
• For analog channels, the value “99.999E+36” represents a hole value.
There are no hole values in the data for digital channels. A hole can occur
when you are using the equivalent time sampling mode when during a
single acquisition not all of the acquisition memory locations contain
sampled waveform data. It can take several acquisitions in the equivalent
time sampling mode to fill all of the memory locations.
Type Advantages Disadvantages
ASCii Data is returned as voltage values and does
not need to be converted and is as
accurate as WORD format. Very slow data download rate.
BYTE Data download rate is twice as fast as the
WORD format. Data is less accurate than the WORD
format for analog channels. Cannot be
used when PODALL is the selected
source.
WORD Data is the most accurate for analog
channels. Data download rate takes twice as long
as the BYTE format
BINary This format can be used for analog
channels, digital channels (MSO
oscilloscopes only), and for HISTogram
source. Data download rate takes twice as long
as the BYTE format for analog channels.