Batch Control Language (BCL)

QUST has two macro/scripting languages, SCL and BCL. BCL is short for Batch Control Language, and it is basically there to let you automate almost everything you can do through the QUEST User Interface. This automation can be done through straight-up BCL scripts, which are plain-text files containing a series of BCL formatted commands. An example of such a command is:

CREATE SOURCE CLASS 'Source1'

which will create a new source class named Source1. This will also create one element in the Source1 class. You can locate this element using the follwing command:

LOCATE ELEMENT 'Source1_1' AT 100 , 100 , 0

This kind of scripting can be tedious and error-prone. The good thing is, almost all BCL commands are supported for use through SCL programming. This means you can write an SCL script to read a list of element names and locations, and execute BCL calls to create and locate those elements.

To use BCL within an SCL script, you use the BCL( command_text : String ) : Integer function. All you do is provide a string argument that contains your BCL command, and SCL will have QUEST execute it. The BCL function returns an integer containing the error code, so you can know whether or not the command executed properly. A list of error code numbers and their corresponding descriptions can be found in the bclerr.inc file in your QUESTlib\Include folder.

It's also possible to have QUEST execute a BCL script as soon as the QUEST.exe program starts. Details for setting up QUEST to run this way from Excel can be found here.

So, assuming you've set up QUEST to run a BCL script generated in Excel, you may now be wondering how to generate BCL scripts in Excel. I have set up a number of Excel VBA User Defined Functions (UDFs) that can be used to generate a subset of all the BCL commands. I'm currently working on building a version of this that I can release for everyone to use, but until then why not start building your own BCL UDFs?