# Query mutilple tags with system.tag.query()

**URL:** <https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/query-mutilple-tags-with-system-tag-query/102249>\
**Category:** Ignition\
**Tags:** scripting, ignition81\
**Created:** [February 12, 2025, 3:16pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/query-mutilple-tags-with-system-tag-query/102249 "2025-02-12T15:16:21Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 10\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![danielps1818](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecae2f/32.png) [@danielps1818](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/danielps1818)\
**Post date:** [February 12, 2025, 3:16pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/query-mutilple-tags-with-system-tag-query/102249/1 "2025-02-12T15:16:21Z")

</div>

Can you query multiple tags using `system.tag.query()` ? _(or something similar)_

Current aproach is using `system.tag.readBlocking()` 3 times to get the corresponding neccesary tags in the same order.

Thank you!

* * *

If you are curious on what I'm working

Expected result is something like:  
Note that EACH column is a list of tags.

| Tag Active | Tag Value | Tag Code |
| --- | --- | --- |
| True | 0.5 | 0001 |
| False | 0.0 | 0002 |
| False | 0.0 | 0003 |
| True | 0.5 | 0004 |
| False | 0.0 | 0005 |

Then I get the `Code` from the oldest timestamp from `Value` that has `Active = True` and save it in another tag.

* * *

_Solution to my problem not to what the tittle says. Fast answer to tittle: No (at least in 8.1.38)._

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![lrose](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/lrose/32/62724_2.png) [@lrose](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/lrose)\
**Post date:** [February 12, 2025, 3:20pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/query-mutilple-tags-with-system-tag-query/102249/2 "2025-02-12T15:20:41Z")

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> [@danielps1818](#):
>
> Current aproach is using `system.tag.readBlocking()` 3 times to get the corresponding neccesary tags in the same order.

What do you mean by this?

The return order is guaranteed to match the supplied tag path list, so you should only need to call `readBlocking()` once.

As far as `system.tag.query()` it really depends on what you are needing. The function is really just a scripting implementation of the Tag Report Tool, so if you can configure the query in the tag report tool to get the results you're looking for, then the function can also return those results.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![danielps1818](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecae2f/32.png) [@danielps1818](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/danielps1818)\
**Post date:** [February 12, 2025, 3:22pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/query-mutilple-tags-with-system-tag-query/102249/3 "2025-02-12T15:22:19Z")

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3 times because I need 3 tags.

So I get 3 lists of `Tag Active`, `Tag Value` and `Tag Code`

Then I get the expected result using those 3

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![dkhayes117](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/dkhayes117/32/68344_2.png) [@dkhayes117](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/dkhayes117)\
**Post date:** [February 12, 2025, 3:30pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/query-mutilple-tags-with-system-tag-query/102249/4 "2025-02-12T15:30:55Z")

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`readBlocking` takes a list of tags, will read all tags, and returns a list of fully-qualified tag values. As Louis said, you only need to call it once.

```python
tagPaths = [...]
tagValues = system.tag.readBlocking(tagPaths)
for qv in tagValues:
    print qv

```

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![paul-griffith](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/paul-griffith/32/37249_2.png) [@paul-griffith](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/paul-griffith)\
**Post date:** [February 12, 2025, 3:38pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/query-mutilple-tags-with-system-tag-query/102249/5 "2025-02-12T15:38:35Z")

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And to echo these other folks: if you're calling `readBlocking` multiple times in a row with single tag paths, your script is _wrong_, and you've stumbled onto one of the most common performance footguns in scripting.

Each `readBlocking` call from the client/designer implies at least two network hops - one to send out the list of tags, another to return the values from the gateway. Calling the function multiple times means you're paying that pain in series.

Calling from the gateway/in a Perspective context is _less_ bad, but still not ideal for performance.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jlandwerlen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/bc8723/32.png) [@jlandwerlen](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/jlandwerlen)\
**Post date:** [February 12, 2025, 3:40pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/query-mutilple-tags-with-system-tag-query/102249/6 "2025-02-12T15:40:15Z")

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You can also do something like:

```python
values = system.tag.readBlocking(tagPaths)
TagActive, TagValue, TagCode = [v.value for v in values]

```

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![danielps1818](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecae2f/32.png) [@danielps1818](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/danielps1818)\
**Post date:** [February 12, 2025, 3:51pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/query-mutilple-tags-with-system-tag-query/102249/7 "2025-02-12T15:51:25Z")

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I will have to create a list of the 3 list of tags that I have. Something like:

```python
path_active = ["path1", "path2", "path3"]
path_value = ["path4", "path5", "path6"]
path_code = ["path7", "path8", "path9"]

path_all = tag_active + tag_value + tag_code

tag_list = system.tag.readBlocking(tag_all)

# Using list comprehension to create chunks
# Literally copied for showing in example. NOT TESTED
tag_list = [a[i:i + len(tag_active)] for i in range(0, len(a), len(tag_active))]

tag_active = tag_list[0]
tag_value = tag_list[1]
tag_code = tag_list[2]

```

As a note; paths will be like `folder/udtN/active`, `folder/udtN/value` and `folder/udtN/code` where N is a number.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![danielps1818](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecae2f/32.png) [@danielps1818](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/danielps1818)\
**Post date:** [February 12, 2025, 3:52pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/query-mutilple-tags-with-system-tag-query/102249/8 "2025-02-12T15:52:52Z")

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> [@danielps1818](#):
>
> ```python
> path_active = ["path1", "path2", "path3"]
> path_value = ["path4", "path5", "path6"]
> path_code = ["path7", "path8", "path9"]
> 
> path_all = tag_active + tag_value + tag_code
> 
> tag_list = system.tag.readBlocking(tag_all)
> 
> # Using list comprehension to create chunks
> # Literally copied for showing in example. NOT TESTED
> tag_list = [a[i:i + len(tag_active)] for i in range(0, len(a), len(tag_active))]
> 
> tag_active = tag_list[0]
> tag_value = tag_list[1]
> tag_code = tag_list[2]
> 
> ```

@paul-griffith is this even better than doing 3 `readBlocking`. Feels like it isn't for the _added complexity_.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![lrose](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/lrose/32/62724_2.png) [@lrose](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/lrose)\
**Post date:** [February 12, 2025, 4:04pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/query-mutilple-tags-with-system-tag-query/102249/9 "2025-02-12T16:04:54Z")

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> [@danielps1818](#):
>
> is this even better than doing 3 `readBlocking`

Yes, how quickly will your 3 calls now balloon into 300?

Also, you can do something like this (breaking out the logic to a function):

```python
def chunker(seq, size):
    return (seq[pos:pos + size] for pos in xrange(0,len(seq),size))

tagValues = [qv.value for qv in system.tag.readBlocking(pathAll)]
tagActive , tagValue, tagCode = [chunk for chunk in chunker(tagValues,3)]

```

Also, if you're doing this in a tagValue change script, don't. Move it to a Gateway Tag Change script. ValueChange scripts can't tolerate the round trip latency of tag reads (especially blocking ones).

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![danielps1818](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecae2f/32.png) [@danielps1818](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/danielps1818)\
**Post date:** [February 13, 2025, 10:34am UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/query-mutilple-tags-with-system-tag-query/102249/10 "2025-02-13T10:34:31Z")

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Hello everyone!

Just wanted to share my final solution:

```python
	tag_path_list = [x.get("fullPath") for x in system.tag.browse(folder_path)]

	tag_list_active = [str(path) + "/IsActive" for path in tag_path_list]
	tag_list_current = [str(path) + "/CurrentValue" for path in tag_path_list]
	tag_list_code = [str(path) + "/ReasonCode" for path in tag_path_list]

	tag_list_all = tag_list_active + tag_list_current

	tag_list_all = system.tag.readBlocking(
		tag_list_all
	)

	index = -1
	min_current = float('inf')
	n = len(tag_list_active)

	tag_list_active = map(lambda x: x.value, tag_list_all[:n])
	tag_list_current = map(lambda x: system.date.toMillis(x.timestamp), tag_list_all[:n])

	for idx, (active, current) in enumerate(zip(tag_list_active, tag_list_current)):

		if active and current < min_current:
			min_current = current
			index = idx

	if index != -1:
		
		reason_code = system.tag.readBlocking(
			[tag_list_code[index]]
		)[0].value

		system.tag.writeAsync(
			["[UNS]to/path/AlarmCode"], [reason_code]
		)

```