# IO syntax for Words

**URL:** <https://mworks.discourse.group/t/io-syntax-for-words/730>\
**Category:** Support\
**Created:** [July 4, 2010, 5:38pm UTC](https://mworks.discourse.group/t/io-syntax-for-words/730 "2010-07-04T17:38:52Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![cstawarz](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex031/user_avatar/mworks.discourse.group/cstawarz/32/3_2.png) [@cstawarz](https://mworks.discourse.group/u/cstawarz)\
**Post date:** [July 4, 2010, 5:38pm UTC](https://mworks.discourse.group/t/io-syntax-for-words/730/1 "2010-07-04T17:38:52Z")

</div>

Hi Chris,

It appears that the IO syntax for declaring a Word channel (i.e. to send words to a Plexon system for clock synchronization) has also changed but hasn’t made its way into the editor. Unless the DiCarlo lab has come up with a new solution to sync the MWorks and Plexon clocks, Najib must still be using Words. Can you please post the correct syntax for declaring this channel? The old syntax was was as follows:

```
        <iochannel tag="wordOut" variable="wordout" capability="ITC18_TTL_AUX_WORD1" data_type="uint8" device="Setup 1 ITC18" direction="output" synchrony="asynchronous" range_min="0" range_max="0" resolution="1" update_interval="3ms" data_interval="1ms" TTL_trigger_port="0" pre_trigger_interval="5ms" post_trigger_interval="5ms"/>

```

Thanks,

Nicole

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![cstawarz](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex031/user_avatar/mworks.discourse.group/cstawarz/32/3_2.png) [@cstawarz](https://mworks.discourse.group/u/cstawarz)\
**Post date:** [July 5, 2010, 1:48pm UTC](https://mworks.discourse.group/t/io-syntax-for-words/730/2 "2010-07-05T13:48:16Z")

</div>

Hi Nicole,

I won’t be back into the office until tomorrow, but I’ll look into this then. In the meantime, can you tell me how you discovered that this syntax no longer works? Does MWorks give you an error when you try to load or run the experiment?

Thanks,  
Chris

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![cstawarz](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex031/user_avatar/mworks.discourse.group/cstawarz/32/3_2.png) [@cstawarz](https://mworks.discourse.group/u/cstawarz)\
**Post date:** [July 6, 2010, 4:43pm UTC](https://mworks.discourse.group/t/io-syntax-for-words/730/3 "2010-07-06T16:43:33Z")

</div>

Hi Nicole,

You need to change the value of the `data_type` parameter to `digital_uint8`. It looks like this syntax changed quite a long time ago (before Ben left), which explains why it wasn’t mentioned in the 0.4.4 release notes. I’ve opened an issue in the bug tracker about updating the editor templates.

Cheers,  
Chris

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![cstawarz](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex031/user_avatar/mworks.discourse.group/cstawarz/32/3_2.png) [@cstawarz](https://mworks.discourse.group/u/cstawarz)\
**Post date:** [July 19, 2022, 11:59pm UTC](https://mworks.discourse.group/t/io-syntax-for-words/730/4 "2022-07-19T23:59:17Z")

</div>