UM-0085-B09
DT80 Range User Manual
Page 30
RG
Format of Returned Data
As mentioned earlier, the DT80 can:
•
make data available to a host computer as it is measured (real-time data), and/or
•
store data in memory to be retrieved at a later date (logged data)
You can control whether data is returned or logged on a per channel, per schedule or global basis.
Real-time data
Web Access (dEX)
If the DT80 is connected to a host computer via a TCP/IP network then the logger's built in web interface can be used to
display real-time data in any web browser. This may be presented in tabular numeric format, or as graphical "mimic"
displays. See
Displaying Real-Time Measurements (P150)
.
ASCII Data
The DT80 can also return real-time data in ASCII (text) form via its command interface. This can be in one of two
formats:
•
free format mode
•
fixed format mode (also known as "host mode", or "formatted mode")
The
/h
switch command selects free format mode (which is the default);
/H
selects fixed format mode.
Free Format Mode
/h
In free format mode, data is returned as human-readable ASCII text. Various settings are available to control how the
data is presented. By default, each channel is printed on a separate line, prefixed by its name (either a standard DT80
channel name e.g. "
3TK
", or a user-specified name e.g. "Inlet temp") and followed by appropriate units.
Thus the following program:
RA30S 1V("Pressure~kPa") 2TK 5DS("Valve state")
would result in text similar to the following text being sent to the active communications port:
Pressure 102.3 kPa
2TK 98.0 degC
Valve state 1 State
Pressure 107.3 kPa
2TK 98.2 degC
Valve state 1 State
and so on.
By applying various formatting settings you can get different results. One possible example would be:
/n/c/u/T P33=10 RA30S 1V("Pressure~kPa",FF2) 2TK(FF2) 5DS("Valve state")
which would format the data thus:
12:46:00.029 102.32 97.98 1
12:46:30.017 107.34 98.22 1
In this example,
/n/c/u
are switch commands
that have been used to switch off output of channel numbers,
channel names and units. The
/T
switch causes each data record to be prefixed by a timestamp.
P33=10
is a
parameter setting
that sets each data value to a fixed width (10 characters). Finally, the
FF2
channel option
specifies that the channel value is to be rounded to 2 decimal places.
Fixed Format Mode /H
Fixed format mode is designed for use with dataTaker host software. Data is still returned in ASCII form, but the record
format is fixed to allow it to be easily parsed by a computer. If
/H
is specified then both of the above examples will return
data as:
D,081044,"JOB1",2005/03/29,12:46:00,0.0293681,0;A,0,102.322,97.979902,1;0072;065F
D,081044,"JOB1",2005/03/29,12:46:30,0.0170320,0;A,0,107.341,98.220014,1;0072;3BEB