Agilent Technologies N9360A, Programming Manual

Page: 39 / 180

Programming Command Guidelines
4
N9360A Multi UE Tester W-CDMA Programming Manual 4-13
Using the Status Registers
The system status comprises of multiple registers that are
arranged in a hierarchical order. The lower-priority status
registers propagate their data to the higher-priority registers in
the data structures by means of summary bits. The Status Byte
Register is at the top of the hierarchy and contains the general
status information of the Tester of events and conditions of the
Tester. All other individual registers are used to determine the
specific events or conditions.
You can determine the state of certain instrument events and
conditions by using the status register system.
Individual status registers can be set and queried using the
commands in the IEEE common commands reference. A status
register is actually composed of five physical registers: one
condition register, two transition registers, one event enable
register and one event register. However, the
Standard Event Status
Register
is composed of an event enable register and an event
register.
Why Would You Use the Status Registers?
In general, your program often needs to be able to detect and
manage error conditions or changes in instrument status. To
detect a change using the polling method, the program must
repeatedly read the registers to monitor a condition as follows:
1
Determine which register contains the bit that reports the
condition.
2
Send the query that reads that register.
3
Examine the bit to see if the condition has changed.
Using the Status Registers
Most monitoring of the instrument conditions is done at the
highest level using the IEEE common commands described
below for the Tester. Refer to
IEEE Common Commands on
page 2 for more information about common commands.
•
*CLS
(clear status) clears the status byte by emptying the
error queue and clearing all the event registers.