Chroma 63600 Series, Operation & Programming Manual, Page: 151 / 258

Remote Operation
5-19
5.2.5 Separators and Terminators
In addition to keywords and parameters, GPIB program statements require the following:
Data Separators:
Data must be separated from the previous command keyword by a space. This is shown in
examples as a space (CURR 3) and on diagrams by the letters
SP inside a circle.
Keyword Separators:
Keywords (or headers) are separated by a colon (:), a semicolon (;), or both. For example:

LOAD:SHOR ON

MEAS:CURR?;VOLT?

CURR:STAT:L1 3;:VOLT:L1 5
Program Line Separators:
A terminator informs GPIB that it has reached the end of a statement. Normally, this is sent
automatically by your GPIB programming statements.
The termination also occurs with other terminator codes, such as EOI. In this guide, the
terminator is assumed at the end of each example line of code. If it needs to be indicated, it
is shown by the symbol <nl>, which stands for “new line” and represents the ASCII code byte
0A hexadecimal (or 10 decimal).
Traversing the Command Tree:

The colon “:” separates keywords from each other which represent changes in branch
level to the next lower one. For example:
CONF:VOLT:ON 5
CONF is a root-level command, VOLT is the first branch, and ON is the second branch.
Each “:” moves down command interpretation to the next branch.

The semicolon “;” allows you to combine command statements into one line. It returns
the command interpretation to the previous colon.
For example: Combine the following two command statements:
RES:RISE 100 <nl> and
RES:L1 400 <nl>
which can be formed into one command line as follows:
RES:RISE 100;L1 400 <nl>

To return to the root-level form you can
1. Enter a new line character. This is symbolized as “<nl>” and can be linefeed “LF”
or/and end of line “EOL”. Or else,
2. Enter a semicolon followed by a colon “;:”.