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Using Commands

Communications with the 9216A use ASCII characters. Commands may be in either

UPPER or lower case and may contain any number of embedded space characters. A

command to the 9216A consists of a four-character command mnemonic, arguments if

necessary, and a command termination. The terminator may be either a carriage return

<CR> or line feed <LF> on RS232, or a line feed <LF> or EOI. No command processing

occurs until the meter receives a command termination. Commands may require one or

more parameters. Multiple parameters are separated by commas ",".

Multiple commands may be sent on one command line by separating them by semi-

colons ";". The difference between sending several commands on the same line and

sending several independent commands is that when a command line is parsed and ex-

ecuted the entire line is executed before any other device action proceeds.

There is no need to wait between commands. The 9216A has a 256-character input

buffer and processes commands in the order received. If the buffer fills up, the 9216A will

to hold off handshaking on RS232. If the buffer overflows the buffer will be cleared and

an error reported. The output buffer may be cleared by using the Device Clear universal

command.

The present value of a particular parameter may be determined by querying the

9216A for its value. A query is formed by appending a question mark "?" to the com-

mand mnemonic and omitting the desired parameter from the command. If multiple

queries are sent on one command line (separated by semicolons, of course) the answers

will be returned in a single response line with the individual responses separated by sem-

icolons. The default response delimiter that the 9216A sends with any answer to a query

is carriage return-line feed <CR> <LF> on RS232 and line feed plus EOI, except for bina-

ry answers, which are delimited by a line feed signal <LF> on both interfaces. All

commands return integer results except as noted in individual command descriptions.

Example command formats are given in Table 3-5.

Protek 9216A User Manual

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