In computing and digital communication, a character refers to a single unit of text. Examples include letters (A, b, c), numbers (1, 2, 3), punctuation marks (., !, ?), and symbols (@, #, $ ). Since computers process binary data, each character is mapped to a specific numerical code defined by encoding standards.
The most common standard for instrument control is ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange), which uses 7 or 8 bits to represent English characters and control codes. Modern software interfaces may also utilize Unicode (UTF-8) to support a broader range of global characters.
Application in Instrument Control
In the context of programmable power supplies and measurement systems, characters are the building blocks of communication commands. Text-based protocols, such as SCPI (Standard Commands for Programmable Instruments), send commands as sequences of characters known as "strings."
For example, to set an output voltage, a controller might send the string VOLT 5.0. The instrument's firmware receives this data, parses the individual characters, and executes the instruction. In programming (such as C, Python, or LabVIEW), a single character is often stored in a char data type, while a sequence is handled as a string.