Macro Files
GPIB analyzer requests can be combined and placed in a macro file that can be executed at any time.
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Note
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IC-CAP macros for IC-CAP Models are different from macro files interpreted by the GPIB analyzer.
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The GPIB analyzer's ability to interpret a file containing a series of requests is valuable for:
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Prototyping an instrument driver for testing a series of commands and checking instrument responses. (The GPIB analyzer macro facility includes some capabilities that are not available in interactive use, such as serial polling until a particular bit is set in the response, or delaying for a fixed number of seconds.) |
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Repeatedly manually executing a sequence of GPIB analyzer commands. |
Macro File Example
This section provides an example of a acceptable GPIB analyzer macro file. The syntax of each line is very simple and the system can readily distinguish comments from commands. Note that expressions, accepted in IC-CAP macros, are not accepted here; most arguments are treated literally. These commands are typed in a text file using any text editor, for example, vi.
The Macros submenu (from the Tools menu) provides 2 macro commands: choose Specify to provide the name of the file to be read and executed; then, choose Execute. If changes are made to the file, it is necessary only to save the changes and again select Execute.
$c This is a small GPIB Analyzer macro file; this line is a comment
$a 17 active address = 17
$c send request for instrument ID string:
ID\n
$r read answer back
$p print it to the Status window
$c now send a string to reset the instrument:
RST\n
$w 2 wait 2 seconds after sending RST to instrument
$c The following '$m' command opens a dialog window, and asks:
$c 'Will now call othermacrofile; want to continue?'
$c At that point, the user can use the mouse to
$c cancel the execution of this macro or continue.
$m Will now call othermacrofile
$i /users/icuser/othermacrofile call another macro, like a subroutine
RST\n
$w 2 wait 2 seconds after sending RST to instrument
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Macro Commands
The macro file contains 2 kinds of statements:
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Literal strings to send to the instruments, such as in the Send String command |
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Commands and directives, such as set the active address or do a serial poll. |
Commands and directives start with a dollar sign ($). Descriptions of the available commands and directives are shown in the following table.
Table 97 Commands and Directives
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$c
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Indicates that the current line is purely a comment. Do not attempt to substitute an exclamation mark (!) to indicate a comment.
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$r
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Read data into the GPIB analyzer's read buffer, as in the Receive String command. The result is also copied onto the top-level IC-CAP system variable named HPIB_READ_STRING, if this variable has been defined by the user.
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$a 2
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Sets the active address to a literal integer value (2 in this case)
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$w 3
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Specifies the wait time, in this example, 3 seconds; if the optional argument is absent, a default of 2 is used.
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$p
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Prints the GPIB analyzer's read buffer, as in the Display String command
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$m
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Displays a message panel for the user to indicate whether to stop or continue. The system appends the phrase want to continue? to the characters that follow $m on the command line. Refer to Macro File Example.
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$n
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Prints status to the status panel of the Instrument Setup window as the macro is executed, for example:
$n the macro has reset the instrument, and is about to download set points
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$s
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Performs a serial poll of the active address. If an integer parameter is present, then it is considered a serial poll mask, and the program loops until
( <poll result> AND <integer mask> ) is non-zero, that is, a desired bit is set. If the mask is negative, the looping continues until a mask-specified bit is clear.
For example, to loop until the serial poll response at the active address has a 1 in bit 6, do this:
$s 64
To loop until the serial poll response at the active address has a 0 in bit 6, do this:
$s -64
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$i
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Calls or includes another file and execute the macros in it. This is like calling a subroutine; for example,
$i /users/icuser/macrofile
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Macro File Syntax Rules
The following rules apply when writing GPIB analyzer macro files.
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Macro command files are read by the GPIB bus analyzer and lines in the files elicit GPIB bus analyzer actions. Use only 1 action per line. |
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Blank lines, or lines with only white space are ignored. In any line, leading white space is ignored. |
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Some lines are sent to the instrument, others are commands or directives. |
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If the dollar sign ($) appears after optional leading white space, a line is considered a directive or command. Otherwise, the first non-white and all subsequent characters in the line are sent to the active address. |
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\b \r \n \0 \f \t \v \\ \$ \<any other single character> will first be converted to control characters or other characters. Use this for sending carriage-return, linefeed, or other terminators. Conversions are listed in the following table. ( \<any other single character> is really a no-op; it causes the <any other single character> to be sent. If it is necessary to send a line that starts with the dollar sign, it can be sent by preceding it with a backslash as shown in the following table.) |
Table 98 Control Characters in the GPIB analyzer
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Character Sent to Instrument
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\b
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backspace
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\r
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CR
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\n
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newline (linefeed)
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\0
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null
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\f
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formfeed
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\t
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tab
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\v
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vertical tab
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\\
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backslash
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\$
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dollar sign
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\<any other single character>
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<any other single character>
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Directives and commands have the dollar sign ($) character, a single command character that is not case-sensitive, and optional trailing arguments. White space between the command character and the first argument is optional. Recall that any other characters appearing on a line, after the directive and its arguments, are ignored. This allows comments alongside directives if desired. For example, |
$a 17 this sets the active address to 17
- To stay consistent with other facilities in IC-CAP, and to keep GPIB analyzer macro files more readable, you may wish to adopt the following style for end-of-line comments:
$a 17 ! this sets the active address to 17
- However, do not use the exclamation mark (!) to associate an end-of-line comment to a string sent to an instrument. The ! character and the rest of the comment will be sent to the instrument:
RST\n ! OUCH. Not only RST<LF>, but all these other
characters go out also!
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