Technical data
10 Programmer’s Guide
2 Programming Fundamentals
Overview
This section is not intended to teach you everything about the SCPI
(Standard Commands for Programmable Instruments) programming
language. The SCPI Consortium or IEEE provides that level of detailed
information.
Programming with SCPI requires knowledge of:
• Computer programming languages, such as C, C++, and
MicrosoftVisual Basic.
• The language of your instrument. The analyzer employs SCPI as its
programming language.
The semantic requirements of your controller’s language determine how
the programming commands and responses are handled in your
application program.
SCPI Language Basics
SCPI is an ASCII-based instrument command language designed for
test and measurement instruments, with the goal of reducing automatic
test equipment (ATE) program development time.
SCPI accomplishes this goal by providing a consistent programming
environment for instrument control and data usage. This consistent
programming environment is achieved by the use of defined program
messages, instrument responses, and data formats across all SCPI
instruments.
By providing a consistent programming environment, replacing one
SCPI instrument with another SCPI instrument in a system will usually
require less effort than with non-SCPI instrument.
SCPI is not a standard which completely provides for interchangeable
instrumentation. SCPI helps move toward interchangeability by
defining instrument commands and responses, but not functionality,
accuracy, resolution, etc.