---
title: "system.opc.readValue"
description: "Reads a single value directly from an OPC server connection."
---

# system.opc.readValue

> Reads a single value directly from an OPC server connection.

This function is used in **Python Scripting**.

## Description
Reads a single value directly from an OPC server connection. The address is specified as a string, for example, [MyDevice]N11/N11:0The object returned from this function has three attributes: value, quality, and timestamp. The value attribute represents the current value for the address specified.

The quality attribute is an OPC-UA status code. You can easily check a good quality vs a bad quality by calling the isGood()function on the quality object. The timestamp attribute is Date object that represents the time that the value was retrieved at.

## Client Permission Restrictions
This scripting function has no [Client Permission](projects\project-properties\project-properties.md#client---permissions) restrictions.

## Syntax
`system.opc.readValue(opcServer, itemPath)`

### Parameters

|Type|Parameter|Description|
|--|--|--|
|String| `opcServer` | The name of the OPC server connection in which the item resides.|
|String| `itemPath`| The item path, or address, to read from.|

### Returns

**QualifiedValue** - An object that contains the value, quality, and timestamp returned from the OPC server for the address specified.

### Scope

All

## Code Examples
```python title="Code Snippet"
server = "Ignition OPC-UA Server"
path = "[SLCSim]_Meta:N7/N7:0"
qualifiedValue = system.opc.readValue(server, path)
print "Value: " + str(qualifiedValue.getValue())
print "Quality: " + qualifiedValue.getQuality().toString()
print "Timestamp: " + qualifiedValue.getTimestamp().toString()
```