Technical data

Unit 2: Programming Concepts
SATO GL4xxe SBPL Programming Reference Page 2-2
PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE
A programming language for a printer is a familiar concept to most programmers. It is a group of
commands that are designed to use the internal intelligence of the printer. The commands, which
are referred to as SATO Command Codes, contain non-printable ASCII characters (such as
<STX>, <ETX>, <ESC>) and printable characters. These commands must be assembled into an
organized block of code to be sent as one data stream to the printer, which in turn interprets the
command codes and generates the desired label output. The programmer is free to use any
programming language available to send the desired data to the printer.
The printer command codes used are based upon “Escape” (1B hexadecimal) sequences.
Typically there are four types of command sequences:
<ESC>{Command}
These commands generally tell the printer to perform a specific action, like “clear the memory.”
<ESC>{Command} {Data}
Commands with this format tell the printer to perform a specific action which is dependent upon
the following data, like “print X labels”, where the value for X is contained in the data.
<ESC>{Command} {Parameter}
These commands set the operational parameters of the printer, like “set the print speed to 3.”
<ESC>{Command} {Parameter} {Data}
Some commands can contain both Parameter and Data elements, such as “print a Code 39
symbol containing the data.”