# Expression 'runScript' fails to run script

**URL:** <https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/expression-runscript-fails-to-run-script/7428>\
**Category:** Ignition\
**Created:** [October 17, 2013, 8:09am UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/expression-runscript-fails-to-run-script/7428 "2013-10-17T08:09:24Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Hardy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Hardy](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/Hardy)\
**Post date:** [October 17, 2013, 8:09am UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/expression-runscript-fails-to-run-script/7428/1 "2013-10-17T08:09:24Z")

</div>

Using 7.6.3 in Windows7-64bit.

I defined in system tags an expression tag.

If in Expression property I do

```auto
runScript("var1=5")
```

the value tag is: 5.

If in Expression property I do

```auto
runScript("var1=5\nvar1=6")
```

the value tag is: 5.

If in Expression property I do

```auto
runScript("var1=5\nVar1=Var1+6\nreturn Var1")
```

the value tag is: null.

Am I doing something wrong?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![adamaustin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f8ce5/32.png) [@adamaustin](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/adamaustin)\
**Post date:** [October 17, 2013, 5:09pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/expression-runscript-fails-to-run-script/7428/2 "2013-10-17T17:09:50Z")

</div>

It seems that return doesn’t work in the [runScript](http://www.inductiveautomation.com/support/usermanuals/ignition/gen_advanced_runscript.htm) expression.

Even though you can use the newline character ( \n ) to run additional lines of code, it looks like the runScript expression is only returning the evaluation of the first line of code.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Robert.McKenzie](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/robert.mckenzie/32/4134_2.png) [@Robert.McKenzie](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/Robert.McKenzie)\
**Post date:** [October 24, 2013, 7:12pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/expression-runscript-fails-to-run-script/7428/3 "2013-10-24T19:12:39Z")

</div>

I believe you can use return if your first line is a function definition, but I haven’t tested that.