Monitoring I/O Messages on the Display

This section contains information that applies to both Windows and Linux.

You can run IO Monitor at any time while running an application, as long as your application uses supported libraries or drivers to access instruments: 

  • Keysight VISA library
  • Keysight VISA-COM library (Windows only)
  • Keysight SICL library
  • IVI-COM drivers (IVI-COM drivers released after September 18, 2010). If you are monitoring an Keysight IVI-COM instrument driver, the driver must be initialized with the tracing option set to true. Refer to the driver help file for more information. (Windows only)

What are IO Monitor Messages?

IO Monitor captures messages generated by the programming libraries or drivers. Each message includes information about the function:

  • The source function name.
  • Parameter values when the function is called (input values).
  • Parameter values and return values when the function returns (output values).
  • Elapsed time in milliseconds.

To Monitor I/O Messages:

  1. Prepare to run the application that makes the function calls you want to monitor. If you don't have an application, you can use Keysight's Interactive IO utility to communicate with an instrument.

  2. Start IO Monitor.

  3. Select the source you want to view. Refer to Changing IO Monitor Settings. The IO Monitor display only captures and displays messages from the IO Libraries you select.
  4. Begin monitoring messages by selecting the Start Capturing Messages button. Alternately, you can select the down arrow to open a menu; the default menu item is Start Capture / Don't Log Captured Messages. To log captured messages to a file, refer to Logging I/O Messages to a File.

  5. Start your application or issue commands from Interactive IO.

  6. Watch events as they are captured by IO Monitor.
  7. Stop the monitoring operation by selecting the Stop Capturing Messages button.

Next: Understanding the IOMonitor Display