Separators And Terminators - Chroma 63200 Series Operation & Programming Manual

6.4

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 colon (:), semicolon (;), or both. For example:

LOAD:SHOR ON

MEAS:CURR?;VOLT?

CURR:STAT:L1 3;:VOLT:L1 5
Program Line Separators:
A terminator to inform GPIB that it has reached the end of a statement. Normally, this is sent
automatically by your GPIB programming statements. Termination also occurs with other
terminator codes, such as EOI. In this manual, 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
indicates "new line" and represents the ASCII coded byte as 0A hexadecimal (or 10 decimal).
Traversing the Command Tree:
■
The colon ":" separates keywords from each other which represents 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 the command interpretation downward 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
Enter a new-line character. This is symbolized as "<nl>" and can be linefeed "LF"
1.
or/and end-of-line "EOL". Or else,
Enter a semicolon followed by a colon ";:".
2.
Introduction to Programming
6-3