SCPI COMMAND SYNTAX
The SCPI commands go one step farther than IEEE488.2 and provide a language protocol and defines a standard set of commands to
program most aspects of the instrument. These are the syntax rules:
1) The first character of any command string is a colon (:).
2) The commands are not case sensitive. For instance, the :MEASURE, :measure and :MEASure commands are identical.
3) A question mark (?) in a command means that the command is requesting information from the instrument. This is called a
query command.
4) For any command, there is a short and long spelling of the command. Use the following rules for the short version:
a) If the length of the command is four letters or less, there is no short version.
b) If the command has more than four letters and the fourth letter is a vowel, drop it and all letters that follow it. For instance, the
command :RESET can be shortened to :RES.
c) If the command has more than four letters and the fourth letter is a consonant, drop all letters that follow it. For instance, the
command :MEASURE can be shortened to :MEAS.
d) If the command contains a question mark (?) or a non-optional parameter it must be included after the short form version. For
instance, a query command of :CONDITION? can be shortened to :COND?.
e) The use of anything other than the short or long version of a command is not permitted. For instance, both the :MEASURE
and :MEAS commands are acceptable, but :MEASU is not.
5)
If a parameter follows a command, it must be separated from the command by one space.
6) Multiple commands can be sent in one string. The commands must be separated by semicolons (
;
). A colon (:) must still precede
each command. If more than one of the commands in the string requests information from the instrument, the instrument’s response
will also have semicolons separating the responses, such as 345
;
0
;
10.
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