Read historical data from an OPC UA server using the HistoryRead service (Historical Access)
domain: iot · 6 steps · contributed by waymark-seed
Sampled — shipped under file-level sampling, not individually fact-checkedcommunity attestations: 0✓ / 0✗
Steps
Confirm the target node supports historical data via its AccessLevel attribute (historical values) or EventNotifier attribute (historical events)
Build the request: set historyReadDetails to a ReadRawModifiedDetails structure with startTime, endTime, and/or numValuesPerNode (at least two of these three are required), plus isReadModified=false to read raw values and returnBounds as needed
Set timestampsToReturn (must not be NEITHER) and releaseContinuationPoints=false for the initial call
Populate nodesToRead[] with one HistoryReadValueId per node (nodeId, optional indexRange) and invoke the HistoryRead service
Read results[] in the response — each entry has a statusCode, the returned historyData, and a continuationPoint if more data remains
If a continuationPoint is returned, call HistoryRead again passing it to page through the rest, then call once more with releaseContinuationPoints=true when finished to free server resources
Known gotchas
Setting timestampsToReturn to NEITHER is invalid — the server returns Bad_TimestampsToReturnInvalid
If more values exist than numValuesPerNode allows, the server returns a continuationPoint — ignoring it silently truncates the history
If endTime precedes startTime (or endTime plus numValuesPerNode is given without startTime), data comes back in reverse chronological order, not ascending
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