Fundamentals Of Programming For Tsp; Introduction; What Is Lua; Lua Basics - Keithley 708B Reference Manual

Models 707B and 708B Switching Matrix Reference Manual

Fundamentals of programming for TSP

Introduction

To conduct a test, a computer (controller) is programmed to send sequences of commands to an
instrument. The controller orchestrates the actions of the instrumentation. The controller is typically
programmed to request measurement results from the instrumentation and make test sequence
decisions based on those measurements.
To take advantage of the advanced features of the instrument, you can add programming commands
to your scripts. Program statements control script execution and provide tools such as variables,
functions, branching, and loop control.
®
TSP is a Lua interpreter. In TSP, the Lua programming language has been extended with the
Keithley Instrument Control Library (ICL), which adds instrument control commands to the standard
Lua commands.

What is Lua?

Lua is a programming language that can be used with TSP-enabled instruments. Lua is an efficient
language with simple syntax that is easy to learn.
Lua is also a scripting language, which means that scripts are compiled and run when they are sent to
the instrument. You do not compile them before sending them to the instrument.

Lua basics

This section contains the basics about the Lua programming language to allow you to start adding
Lua programming commands to your scripts quickly.
For more information about Lua, see the
information is the
language.
Comments
Comments start anywhere outside a string with a double hyphen (--). If the text immediately after a
double hyphen (--) is anything other than double left brackets ([[), the comment is a short comment,
which continues only until the end of the line. If double left brackets ([[) follow the double hyphen
(--), it is a long comment, which continues until the corresponding double right brackets (]]) close
the comment. Long comments may continue for several lines and may contain nested [[ . . . ]]
pairs. The table below shows how to use code comments.
707B-901-01 Rev. A / August 2010
Lua website
Lua users group http://lua-users.org, created for and by users of Lua programming
Section 6: Instrument programming
http://www.lua.org. Another source of useful
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