# Interactive Control Tutorial

This tutorial shows how to use the commandline tool to open an interactive terminal
to control a PandA.

## Connect

Open a terminal, and type:

```
pandablocks control <hostname>
```

Where `<hostname>` is the hostname or ip address of your PandA.

## Type Commands

You should be presented with a prompt where you can type PandABlocks-server
[commands]. If you are on Linux you can tab complete commands with the TAB key:

```
< PCAP.     # Hit TAB key...
PCAP.ACTIVE     PCAP.BITS1      PCAP.BITS3      PCAP.GATE       PCAP.SAMPLES    PCAP.TRIG       PCAP.TS_END     PCAP.TS_TRIG
PCAP.BITS0      PCAP.BITS2      PCAP.ENABLE     PCAP.HEALTH     PCAP.SHIFT_SUM  PCAP.TRIG_EDGE  PCAP.TS_START
```

Pressing return will send the command to the server and display the response.

## Control an acquisition

You can check if an acquisition is currently in progress by getting the value of the
`PCAP.ACTIVE` field:

```
< PCAP.ACTIVE?
OK =0
```

You can start and stop acquisitions with special "star" commands. To start an acquisition:

```
< *PCAP.ARM=
OK
```

You can now use the up arrow to recall the previous command, then press return:

```
< PCAP.ACTIVE?
OK =1
```

This means that acquisition is in progress. You can stop it by disarming:

```
< *PCAP.DISARM=
OK
< PCAP.ACTIVE?
OK =0
```

## Conclusion

This tutorial has shown how to start and stop an acquisition from the commandline
client. It can also be used to send any other control [commands] to query and set
variables on the PandA.

[commands]: https://pandablocks-server.readthedocs.io/en/latest/commands.html