System SourceMeter® Instrument Reference Manual  Section 7: 
 
2600BS-901-01 Rev. C / August 2016  7-191 
 
Details 
This function reads available characters from the serial port. It does not wait for new characters to 
arrive. As long as maxchars is less than 200 characters, all characters that are received by the serial 
port (before the serial.read() command is executed) are returned. If too many characters are 
received between calls to this function, the RS-232 buffers will overflow and some characters may be 
lost. 
Call this function as many times as necessary to receive the required number of characters. For 
optimal performance, use a small delay between repeated calls to this function. 
The data returned is the raw data stream read from the port. No characters, such as control 
characters or terminator characters, are interpreted. 
If you attempt to use this function when the serial port is enabled as a command interface, a settings 
conflict error is generated. 
 
Example 
 
 
print(data) 
Read data from the serial port. 
Output: 
John Doe 
The above output indicates that the string "John 
Doe" was read from the serial port. 
 
Also see 
serial.write() (on page 7-191) 
 
serial.write() 
This function writes data to the serial port. 
Type  TSP-Link accessible  Affected by  Where saved  Default value 
   
 
Usage 
serial.write(data) 
 
A string representing the data to write 
 
Details 
This function writes the specified string to the serial port, where it can be read by connected 
equipment (for example, a component handler).  
No terminator characters are added to the data, and data is written exactly as specified by the data 
parameter. 
 
Example 
 
Write data string "1 2 3 4" to the serial port. 
 
Also see 
serial.read() (on page 7-190)