Prerequisites

• Supported operating system: Windows or Linux (for OPC "Classic", only Windows is supported).
• .NET Framework 4.7.2 or .NET 6 or 8 (or possibly higher version).
• PyCharm (https://www.jetbrains.com/pycharm/). PyCharm Community Edition is sufficient.
• Internet connection with access to https://pypi.org/ (for downloading Python packages) and www.opclabs.com (for connection to the public OPC UA and OPC XML-DA servers).
• For the example(s) with OPC Data Access or OPC Alarms&Events only: OPC Data Client installed with the Setup program, using the default choices (contains Simulation OPC "Classic" server used by the examples).
• Note that for other examples in this Getting Started, you DO NOT need to install OPC Data Client (using the Setup program), as the necessary component packages will be pulled from the Internet.

Console Application to Read Value from OPC Unified Architecture Server

1. On the Welcome to PyCharm screen, press the New Project button.

2. In the New Project dialog, leave all settings at their defaults, and press the Create button.

3. If prompted by PyCharm, allow the Microsoft Defender configuration by pressing the Automatically button, and further allowing PyCharm to make corresponding changes to the system.

4. Switch to the Terminal window of PyCharm, type pip install opclabs_quickopc, and press Enter. Wait until the package is fully installed.

5. From the PyCharm menu, select File -> New, and then in the New menu, select Python file.

6. In the New Python file window, type in hello for the Name, and press Enter.

7. In the hello.py editor tab, add following code:

   import opclabs_quickopc
   from OpcLabs.EasyOpc.UA import *
   
   client = EasyUAClient()
   value = IEasyUAClientExtension.ReadValue(client,
                                            UAEndpointDescriptor('opc.tcp://opcua.demo-this.com:51210/UA/SampleServer'),
                                            UANodeDescriptor('nsu=http://test.org/UA/Data/;i=10853'))
   print(value)
                                   
   

   You will likely get red squiggles underlining on the OpcLabs namespace in the "from ... import" statement, and on other identifiers further on in the code. Ignore it. This happens because OPC Data Client is based on Python.NET, and the Python IDE cannot recognize the symbols from dynamically imported namespaces.

8. Select Run -> Run 'hello.py' (Shift+F10) from the PyCharm menu, or press the corresponding button (green right-pointing hollow triangle) on the PyCharm toolbar.

   This will build and launch the program. The value will be read from the OPC server and displayed in the Debug Console window.

Console Application to Read Value from OPC Data Access Server

This Getting Started is for OPC "Classic" (COM/DCOM based). It is supported only on Windows and works with the simulation server installed with OPC Data Client Setup program.

1. On the Welcome to PyCharm screen, press the New Project button.

2. In the New Project dialog, leave all settings at their defaults, and press the Create button.

3. If prompted by PyCharm, allow the Microsoft Defender configuration by pressing the Automatically button, and further allowing PyCharm to make corresponding changes to the system.

4. Switch to the Terminal window of PyCharm, type pip install opclabs_quickopc, and press Enter. Wait until the package is fully installed.

5. From the PyCharm menu, select File -> New, and then in the New menu, select Python file.

6. In the New Python file window, type in helloDA for the Name, and press Enter.

7. In the helloDA.py editor tab, add following code:

   import opclabs_quickopc
   from OpcLabs.EasyOpc.DataAccess import *
   
   client = EasyDAClient()
   value = IEasyDAClientExtension.ReadItemValue(client, '', 'OPCLabs.KitServer.2', 'Demo.Single')
   print(value)
   

8. Select Run -> Run 'helloDA.py' (Shift+F10) from the PyCharm menu, or press the corresponding button (green right-pointing hollow triangle) on the PyCharm toolbar.

   This will build and launch the program. The value will be read from the OPC server and displayed in the Debug Console window.

Console Application to Read Value from OPC XML-DA Server

1. On the Welcome to PyCharm screen, press the New Project button.

2. In the New Project dialog, leave all settings at their defaults, and press the Create button.

3. If prompted by PyCharm, allow the Microsoft Defender configuration by pressing the Automatically button, and further allowing PyCharm to make corresponding changes to the system.

4. Switch to the Terminal window of PyCharm, type pip install opclabs_quickopc, and press Enter. Wait until the package is fully installed.

5. From the PyCharm menu, select File -> New, and then in the New menu, select Python file.

6. In the New Python file window, type in helloXml for the Name, and press Enter.

7. In the helloXml.py editor tab, add following code:

   import opclabs_quickopc
   from OpcLabs.EasyOpc import *
   from OpcLabs.EasyOpc.DataAccess import *
   
   client = EasyDAClient()
   value = IEasyDAClientExtension.ReadItemValue(client,
                                                ServerDescriptor('http://opcxml.demo-this.com/XmlDaSampleServer/Service.asmx'),
                                                DAItemDescriptor('Dynamic/Analog Types/Double'))
   print(value)
                                   
   

8. Select Run -> Run 'helloXml.py' (Shift+F10) from the PyCharm menu, or press the corresponding button (green right-pointing hollow triangle) on the PyCharm toolbar.

   This will build and launch the program. The value will be read from the OPC server and displayed in the Debug Console window.