Understanding the IO Monitor Display

• Start: Starts capturing messages originating from the selected IO Libraries functions. On clicking Start, the button switches to Stop, allowing you to stop capturing messages.
  The following options are available when you click on the Start drop down:

  • Start Capture / Don't Log Captured Messages - Begins the capture of messages to the display without logging them to an .xml file.

  • Start Capture / Log To New Message File - Starts capturing messages to the display, and opens a dialog that lets you create / name a new .xml file for logging those messages. This dialog also lets you choose a maximum size (in MB) for that log file. Once you have created an .xml file for active logging, a status bar for the log file will appear just below the buttons and above the Overview section, displaying the name of the open log file and the percent full with respect to the maximum size you set.

  • Start Capture / Log to Open Message File - Starts capturing messages to the display, and logs to the file that is currently open. This menu option is only available if you previously started and then stopped capturing without closing the log.

• Save: Saves currently displayed messages as an .xml log file.

• Open: Opens a dialog where you can view the existing files. Select the file to open.

• Print - Prints the messages captured by IO Monitor. If no filter is applied, the entire log is printed.

• Clear - Clears messages from the display.

• Filter - Filters the message list as per the search criteria.

• Settings - Opens the IO Monitor Settings dialog.

The Overview Section provides an interactive, scrollable view of captured I/O activity and is organized into eight columns. Infinite scrolling is supported, allowing you to browse through large sets of I/O messages without manual pagination.

• Time Stamp: The Time Stamp column contains the time the message was sent.
• Program: The program that originates the message.
  
• Address: The logical addresses of the device.
  
• Source: The IO Library or driver that contains the function that generated the message. Messages from IVI-COM instrument drivers show IVI-COM in this column.
  
• Method Call: The function that generated the message. For detailed information on specific function calls, refer to the Keysight VISA, SICL, and VISA-COM help files, or to the IVI-COM driver help file.
  
• IO Data: The value of the first non-empty string parameter for the function call. The IO Data column monitors the I/O string or other buffer data. VISA Resource Descriptors and SCPI commands are monitored in this column.
  IO Monitor displays all VISA/SICL APIs handling data on a secure connection, while obscuring the content. The data sent or received is labeled as "<secure data>" in the overview section, and the data length is shown as 4294967295k in the detail section.
  If the data is too long, you can view it using any of the following methods:

  • Right-click or hover over IO Data to display the Copy button. Click Copy and paste the data into a text file.

  • Click on IO Data to populate the message details. Then, click on each parameter to view its input arguments and details.

• Return Value: The return value passed back from the function call. For detailed information on specific function calls and possible returned values, refer to the Keysight VISA, SICL, and VISA-COM help files, or to the IVI-COM driver help file. Please consult the Keysight VISA help file for a table containing all VISA Attributes along with their hexadecimal and decimal codes.
  
• Time (ms): The amount of time required to process the function call, expressed in milliseconds. Examine the Time values to determine if any bottlenecks exist in your I/O code. For example, if one I/O operation takes much longer than the others, that operation may be a good place to begin studying your code. After you have adjusted the code, you can rerun the I/O application and examine its events to verify any improvements.

The detail section shows the parameter(s) for the selected entry. The Parameters section has these columns:

• Name - The name of the parameter.
  
• Type - Whether the data is an input, output, or return value, and the data type of the value.
  
• Value - The parameter value. IO Monitor displays all VISA/SICL APIs handling data on a secure connection, while obscuring the content. With this update, the data sent or received is labeled as "<secure data>" in the overview section, and the data length is shown as "4294967295" in the detail section.

Buffer and array parameters are listed in the Parameters section. Click on one of these parameters to display the buffer or array details in the section to the right. The details for a buffer are:

• Offset - The buffer offset of the first value in the hexadecimal or ASCII column.
• Hexadecimal  - The hexadecimal representation of the buffer value.
• ASCII - The ASCII representation of the buffer value.

Arrays can contain 16-, 32-, or 64-bit data. The details for an array are:

• Index - The position of each element in the array.
• Value - The value of each array element.

The Status description at the bottom of the display alerts you to whether monitoring is on or off, and whether logging is enabled or disabled.
Service Status - Connected indicates that the IO Monitor service is available. If the service is interrupted and the status shows Disconnected, you must restart the IO Monitor service. To restart: run sudo systemctl restart KeysightDistributedInfrastructureService.service in the terminal.

IOLS Version - The status bar now displays IOLS version installed on the test station.