Section 5: Introduction to SCPI commands
Model 2461 Interactive SourceMeter® Instrument Reference Manual
5-2
2461-901-01 A/November 2015
SCPI can also use common commands, which consist of an asterisk (
*
) followed by three or four
letters. For example, you can reset the instrument by sending the following command:
*RST
The examples above show commands that are sent individually. You can also group command
messages when you send them to the instrument. To group a set of commands, separate them with
semicolons and include a colon before each command (unless it starts with an *). For example, to
reset the instrument, enable relative offset for the current function, and set a relative offset of 0.5 for
the current function, send the command:
*RST; :SENSe:CURRent:REL:STAT ON; :SENSe:CURRent:RELative .5
If commands are not combined, the colon (
:
) at the beginning of a command is optional. For
example, the following commands are equivalent:
:SENSe:CURRent:REL:STAT ON
SENSe:CURRent:REL:STAT ON
If the next command in a multiple command message is on the same path, you do not need to send
the colon to reset the path parsing of the command. For example, to enable relative offset and set a
relative offset of 0.5 for the current function, send the command:
:SENSe:CURRent:RELative 0.5; REL:STAT ON
You can also do multiple queries in a single command message with or without resetting the path. For
example, to query for the current relative offset and state, you can send:
:SENSe:CURRent:RELative?; :SENSe:CURRent:REL:STAT?
You can also send:
SENSe:CURRent:RELative?; rel:STAT?
Each new command message resets the parser path as if it was sent with the leading colon. The
output for both queries is:
0.5;0
