When Concatenating Commands
Command Group
A command group is a group of commands that have
common compound headers arranged in a hierarchy. A
command group may contain sub-groups.
Example Group of commands related to Store/
Recall
:TRACe[:STATe]/?
:TRACe:BINary:REPLy/?
:TRACe:FILE:CREate/?
:TRACe:POINts/?
:TRACe:CHANnel<n>:ACTual?
:TRACe:CHANnel<n>:DATA:FORMat/?
:TRACe:CHANnel<n>:DATA:ENDian/?
:TRACe:CHANnel<n>:DATA:READ?
:TRACe:CHANnel<n>:STATistics?
When Concatenating Commands of the Same Group
The instrument stores the hierarchical level of the
command that is currently being executed, and
performs analysis on the assumption that the next
command sent will also belong to the same level.
Therefore, common header sections can be omitted for
commands belonging to the same group.
Example
:SOURce:FUNCtion CURRent;RANGe 1A<PMT>
When Concatenating Commands of Different Groups
If the following command does not belong to the same
group, a colon (:) is placed in front of the header.
Example
:SOURce:VOLTage:LEVel 3.5;:
OUTPut ON<PMT>
When Concatenating Simple Headers
If a simple header follows another command, a colon (:)
is placed in front of the simple header.
Example
:SOURce:LIST:SELect "Test1.csv";:
STARt<PMT>
When Concatenating Common Commands
Common commands that are defined in the IEEE
488.2-1992 are independent of hierarchy. A colon is not
needed before a common command.
Example
:CHANnel1:OUTPut ON;*OPC?<PMT>
When Separating Commands with <PMT>
If a terminator is used to separate two commands,
each command is a separate message. Therefore, the
common header must be specified for each command
even when commands belonging to the same
command group are being concatenated.
Example
SOURce:FUNCtion CURRent<PMT>SOURce:
RANGe 1A<PMT>
Header Interpretation Rules
The instrument interprets the header that is received
according to the rules below.
• Mnemonics are not case sensitive.
Example
MEASure
can also be written as
measure
or
Measure
.
• The lower-case section of the mnemonic can be
omitted.
Example
MEASure
can also be written as
measure
or
meas
.
• The question mark at the end of a header indicates
that it is a query. However, the question mark cannot
be omitted.
Example
The shortest abbreviation for
MEASure?
is
MEAS?
.
• If the
<x>
(value) at the end of a mnemonic is
omitted, it is interpreted as a 1.
Example
If
FILT
is specified for
FILTer<x>
,
it means
FILTer1
.
• The section enclosed by brackets can be omitted.
Example
:SYSTem:DISPlay[:STATe] 1
can be written as
:SYSTem:DISPlay 1.
However, the last section enclosed by brackets
cannot be omitted in an upper-level query.
16-4
IM 765601-01E
16.1 Program Format
