15-4 Additional SCPI Commands
FORMat subsystem
The commands in this subsystem are used to select the data format for transferring instrument
readings over the bus. The BORDer command and DATA command only affect readings
transferred from the buffer (i.e., SENSE:DATA? or CALC:DATA? are always sent in ASCII).
These commands are summarized in Table 14-4.
:DATA command
[:DATA] <type>
:FORMat[:DATA] <type> Specify data format
Parameters
<type> = ASCii ASCII format
SREal IEEE754 single precision format
DREal IEEE754 double precision format
Description
This command is used to select the data format for transferring readings over the bus. For
every reading conversion, the data string sent over the bus contains the elements specified by the
:ELEMents command. The specified elements are sent in a particular order.
The ASCII data format is in a direct readable form for the operator. Most BASIC languages
easily convert ASCII mantissa and exponent to other formats. However, some speed is
compromised to accommodate the conversion. Figure 15-1 shows the ASCII format that
includes all the data elements.
Figure 15-1
ASCII data format
±1.23456789E±00VDC, 0INTCHAN
Reading*
Channel
Number
Mantissa Exponent
Units:
INTCHAN = Internal Channel
EXTCHAN = External Channel
0 = Internal Temperature Sensor
1 = Channel 1
2 = Channel 2
1 to 80 = External Channel Number
Units:
VDC = DC Volts
C = Temperature in °C
F = Temperature in °F
K = Temperature in K
* An overflow reading is displayed as +9.9E37 with no units