Basic Reading and Writing Tag Examples

Basic Reading

Reading a single tag returns a Tag object.

def read_single():
    with LogixDriver('10.61.50.4/10') as plc:
        return plc.read('DINT1')

>>> read_single()
Tag(tag='DINT1', value=20, type='DINT', error=None)

Reading multiple tags returns a list of Tag objects.

def read_multiple():
    tags = ['DINT1', 'SINT1', 'REAL1']
    with LogixDriver('10.61.50.4/10') as plc:
        return plc.read(*tags)

>>> read_multiple()
[Tag(tag='DINT1', value=20, type='DINT', error=None), Tag(tag='SINT1', value=5, type='SINT', error=None), Tag(tag='REAL1', value=100.0009994506836, type='REAL', error=None)]

An array is represented in a single Tag object, but the value attribute is a list.

def read_array():
    with LogixDriver('10.61.50.4/10') as plc:
        return plc.read('DINT_ARY1{5}')

def read_array_slice():
    with LogixDriver('10.61.50.4/10') as plc:
        return plc.read('DINT_ARY1[50]{5}')

>>> read_array()
Tag(tag='DINT_ARY1', value=[0, 1000, 2000, 3000, 4000], type='DINT[5]', error=None)
>>> read_array_slice()
Tag(tag='DINT_ARY1[50]', value=[50000, 51000, 52000, 53000, 54000], type='DINT[5]', error=None)

You can read strings just like a normal value, no need to handle the LEN and DATA attributes individually.

def read_strings():
    with LogixDriver('10.61.50.4/10') as plc:
        return plc.read('STRING1', 'STRING_ARY1[2]{2}')

>>> read_strings()
[Tag(tag='STRING1', value='A Test String', type='STRING', error=None), Tag(tag='STRING_ARY1[2]', value=['THIRD', 'FoUrTh'], type='STRING[2]', error=None)]

Structures can be read as a whole, assuming that no attributes have External Access set to None. Structure tags will be a single Tag object, but the value attribute will be a dict of {attribute: value}.

def read_udt():
    with LogixDriver('10.61.50.4/10') as plc:
        return plc.read('SimpleUDT1_1')

def read_timer():
    with LogixDriver('10.61.50.4/10') as plc:
        return plc.read('TIMER1')

>>> read_udt()
Tag(tag='SimpleUDT1_1', value={'bool': True, 'sint': 100, 'int': -32768, 'dint': -1, 'real': 0.0}, type='SimpleUDT1', error=None)
>>> read_timer()
Tag(tag='TIMER1', value={'CTL': [False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False,
                                 False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False,
                                 False, False, False, False, False, False, False, True, True, False],
                          'PRE': 30000, 'ACC': 30200, 'EN': False, 'TT': True, 'DN': True}, type='TIMER', error=None)

Note

Most builtin data types appear to have a BOOL array (or DWORD) attribute called CTL that is not shown in the Logix tag browser.

Basic Writing

Writing a single tag returns a single Tag object response.

def write_single():
    with LogixDriver('10.61.50.4/10') as plc:
        return plc.write(('DINT2', 100_000_000))

>>> write_single()
Tag(tag='DINT2', value=100000000, type='DINT', error=None)

Writing multiple tags will return a list of Tag objects.

def write_multiple():
    with LogixDriver('10.61.50.4/10') as plc:
        return plc.write(('REAL2', 25.2), ('STRING3', 'A test for writing to a string.'))

>>> write_multiple()
[Tag(tag='REAL2', value=25.2, type='REAL', error=None), Tag(tag='STRING3', value='A test for writing to a string.', type='STRING', error=None)]

Writing a whole structure is possible too. As with reading, all attributes are required to NOT have an External Access of None. Also, when writing a structure your value must match the structure exactly and provide data for all attributes. The value should be a list of values or a dict of attribute name and value, nesting as needed for arrays or other structures with the target. This example shows a simple recipe UDT:

Attribute	Data Type
Enabled	BOOL
OpCodes	DINT[10]
Targets	REAL[10]
StepDescriptions	STRING[10]
TargetUnits	STRING8[10]
Name	STRING

def write_structure():
    with LogixDriver('10.61.50.4/10') as plc:
        recipe_data = {
            'Enabled': True,
            'OpCodes': [10, 11, 4, 20, 6, 20, 6, 30, 5, 0],
            'Targets': [100, 500, 85, 5, 15, 10.5, 20, 0, 0, 0],
            'StepDescriptions': ['Set Water Temperature',
                                 'Heated Water',
                                 'Start Agitator',
                                 'Hand Add - Flavor Part 1',
                                 'Timed Mix',
                                 'Hand Add - Flavor Part 2',
                                 'Timed Mix',
                                 'Transfer to Storage Tank',
                                 'Disable Agitator',
                                 ''],
            'TargetUnits': ['°F', 'lbs', '%', 'gal', 'min', 'lbs', 'min', '', '', ''],
            'Name': 'Our Fictional Recipe',
        }

        plc.write(('Example_Recipe', recipe_data))