Alien Technology ALR-8780, Interface Manual, Page: 21 / 104

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While both methods are equally useful, the choice will ultimately be determined
by the needs of the controlling application.
Although it may be easier and require less coding to work in Interactive Mode, a
little investment in programming effort lets the user set up Autonomous Mode to
provide a more scalable system for multiple readers. In addition, readers that
spend less time communicating with the host can spend more time looking for
tags.
Interactive Mode
Reading tags in Interactive Mode is as simple as issuing a single command to
the reader. This command is
get TagList
. This causes the reader to initiate
a tag search, and report back the current TagList. Depending on the PersistTime
and recent tag activity, the returned data may include tag read data from
previous reads. Following is an example of what the default TagList format
("Text") looks like.
Tag:041C 1820 2812 4080, Disc:2003/01/21 02:24:00, Last:2003/01/21 02:24:00, Count:1, Ant:0
Tag:1155 8B14 5661 D40B, Disc:2003/01/21 04:14:47, Last:2003/01/21 04:24:00, Count:1, Ant:0
The format of the TagList can be specified using the
set TagListFormat
command. One of the options is XML format, which would return the same
TagList as:
<Alien-RFID-Tag-List>
<Alien-RFID-Tag>
<TagID>041C 1820 2812 4080</TagID>
<DiscoveryTime>2003/01/21 02:24:00</DiscoveryTime>
<LastSeenTime>2003/01/21 02:24:00</LastSeenTime>
<ReadCount>1</ReadCount>
<Antenna>0</Antenna>
</Alien-RFID-Tag>
<Alien-RFID-Tag>
<TagID>1155 8B14 5661 D40B </TagID>
<DiscoveryTime>2003/01/21 02:24:00</DiscoveryTime>
<LastSeenTime>2003/01/21 02:24:00</LastSeenTime>
<ReadCount>1</ReadCount>
<Antenna>0</Antenna>
</Alien-RFID-Tag>
</Alien-RFID-Tag-List>
Additional formats include "Terse", and "Custom". See the TagListFormat section
in Chapter 4,
Alien Reader Protocol for details on all of the TagList formats.
Autonomous Mode
Autonomous Mode is a configuration and operation mode that enables
automated monitoring and handling of tag data. You first issue a series of
configuration commands to the reader which specify how and when to read tags,
and optionally what to do with the tag data.
Once configured in this mode, the reader can be left to operate on its own. An
application on a host computer can then be set up to listen for notification
messages from the reader containing any tag data that it has read.