1. The base class universal_usbtmc.Instrument¶

The universal_usbtmc backends all derive from universal_usbtmc.Instrument and thus inherit or reimplement its methods.

Thus, you can read the reference for this class to find out how to use the backends:

class universal_usbtmc.Instrument(device)¶

USBTMC instrument interface

The backends get initialized with a single device string to set up the connection.

Parameters:	device (str) – The device to connect to

ENCODING = 'utf-8'¶: The encoding used when interpreting bytes as strings

LINE_ENDING = ''¶: The line ending to add to write() or query() commands

write_raw(data)¶

Send binary data to the instrument

The backends need to implement this method!

Parameters:	data (bytes) – The data to send to the instrument

read_raw(num=-1, timeout=0.0)¶

Read binary data from the instrument

The backends need to implement this method!

Parameters:	num (bytes) – Number of bytes to read back timeout (float) – Seconds until the read operation should time out

write(message, encoding='default', line_ending='default')¶

Send a string message to the instrument

Parameters:	message (str) – The message to send encoding (str) – The encoding to use when converting the message from str to bytes line_ending (str) – The line ending to add to the message

read(num=-1, encoding='default', line_ending='default')¶

Read a response string from the instrument

Parameters:	num (bytes) – Number of bytes to read back encoding (str) – The encoding to use when converting the response from bytes to str line_ending (str) – The line ending to strip off from end of received message

query_raw(message, encoding='default', num=-1)¶: Convenience method to first send a string message and then return the binary response data from a subsequent read_raw() call.

query(message, num=-1, encoding='default', line_ending='default')¶: Convenience method to first send a string command, then read and return a response string. :param str line_ending: The line ending to add to the message