Agilent Technologies InfiniiVision 3000 X-Series, Programmer'S Manual

Page: 1089 / 1232

More About Oscilloscope Commands
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Agilent InfiniiVision 3000 X-Series Oscilloscopes Programmer's Guide 1089
Valid Command/Query Strings
• "Program Message Syntax" on page 1089
• "Duplicate Mnemonics" on page 1093
• "Tree Traversal Rules and Multiple Commands" on page 1093
Program Message Syntax
To program the instrument remotely, you must understand the command
format and structure expected by the instrument. The IEEE 488.2 syntax
rules govern how individual elements such as headers, separators, program
data, and terminators may be grouped together to form complete
instructions. Syntax definitions are also given to show how query
responses are formatted. The following figure shows the main syntactical
parts of a typical program statement.
Instructions (both commands and queries) normally appear as a string
embedded in a statement of your host language, such as Visual Basic or
C/C++. The only time a parameter is not meant to be expressed as a string
is when the instruction's syntax definition specifies <block data>, such as
<learn string>. There are only a few instructions that use block data.
Program messages can have long or short form commands (and data in
some cases — see
"Long Form to Short Form Truncation Rules" on
page 1090), and upper and/or lower case ASCII characters may be used.
(Query responses, however, are always returned in upper case.)
Instructions are composed of two main parts:
• The header, which specifies the command or query to be sent.
• The program data, which provide additional information needed to
clarify the meaning of the instruction.
Instruction
Header
The instruction header is one or more mnemonics separated by colons (:)
that represent the operation to be performed by the instrument.
":DISPlay:LABel ON" is a command. Queries are indicated by adding a
question mark (?) to the end of the header, for example, ":DISPlay:LABel?".
Many instructions can be used as either commands or queries, depending
":DISPLAY:LABEL ON"
Program Message
Instruction Header
Separator
Program Data