Operating instructions

R&S ESCI Structure and Syntax of the Device Messages
1166.6004.12 5.11 E-1
Structure of a Command Line
A command line may consist of one or several commands. It is terminated by a <New Line>, a <New
Line> with EOI or an EOI together with the last data byte. The IEC/IEEE driver of the controller usually
produces automatically an EOI together with the last data byte.
Several commands in a command line are separated by a semicolon ";". If the next command belongs
to a different command system, the semicolon is followed by a colon.
Example:
CALL IBWRT(receiver%,"SENSe:FREQuency:CENTer 100MHz;:INPut:ATTenuation 10")
This command line contains two commands. The first one is part of the SENSe command
system and is used to determine the center frequency of the instrument. The second one is
part of the INPut command system and sets the input signal attenuation.
If the successive commands belong to the same system, having one or several levels in common, the
command line can be abbreviated. For that purpose, the second command after the semicolon starts
with the level that lies below the common levels (see also Fig. 5-1). The colon following the semicolon
must be omitted in this case.
Example:
CALL IBWRT
(receiver%, "SENSe:FREQuency:STARt 1E6;:SENSe:FREQuency:STOP 1E9")
This command line is represented in its full length and contains two commands separated
from each other by the semicolon. Both commands are part of the SENSe command
system, subsystem FREQuency, i.e. they have two common levels.
When abbreviating the command line, the second command begins with the level below
SENSe:FREQuency. The colon after the semicolon is omitted.
The abbreviated form of the command line reads as follows:
CALL IBWRT(receiver%, "SENSe:FREQuency:STARt 1E6;STOP 1E9")
However, a new command line always begins with the complete path.
Example: CALL IBWRT(receiver, "SENSe:FREQuency:STARt
1E6")
CALL IBWRT(receiver%, "SENSe:FREQuency:STOP 1E9")