What's new in QuickOPC 2022.2

See also: Versions; Previous version: What's new in QuickOPC 2022.1

Internal version number: 5.64

Key changes:

Component Improvements

OPC UA PubSub

• With MQTT transport protocol mapping, it is no longer necessary to specify whether UADP or JSON will be used as message mapping. QuickOPC will automatically recognize the message mapping, and is able to receive both UADP and JSON messages on the same connection. For more information, see OPC UA PubSub Automatic Message Mapping Recognition and OPC UA PubSub Transport Profiles.
• The JSON message mapping now also accepts transport messages that are (incorrectly) formatted as an array of network messages, in order to better cope with non-standard publishers like Azure Industrial IoT Platform.
• Added a boolean Retain property to the UADataSetHeader class. Determines whether the dataset message is retained by the server (MQTT).
• Retained messages (MQTT) are now automatically "replayed" on new subscriptions, even if the MQTT subscription to a particular topic is shared among multiple readers.
• Added OriginPattern property to the UASubscribeDataSetFilter class. It allows to specify a filtering pattern for the origin of the dataset message. The origin is e.g. a MAC address in the Ethernet transport, the IP address in the UDP transport, or the topic name in the MQTT transport.
• Added MessageMappingName property to the UADataSetHeader class. Contains the name of the message mapping ("Json" or "Uadp"), if known.
• The UAPublisherId and UADataSetHeader classes now implement the IComparable<> interface.
• It is now possible to subscribe to an MQTT broker, while storing a copy of the received message into a file system at the same time, e.g. for troubleshooting. For more information, see File-based MQTT emulation - Implicit Usage in MQTT Transport and File-based MQTT emulation - Examples.
• When specifying custom properties on PubSub objects, it is possible to shorten the commonly used namespace http://opclabs.com/OpcUA/PubSub to {OpcLabs}, using a pre-defined replacement variable.

Tools and Online Services

Demo Servers and Publishers

• In UADemoPublisher, specifying a "file:" scheme with MQTT transport automatically selects the File-based MQTT emulation, i.e. the generated messages will be stored in form of files in directories of the physical file system.
• In UADemoPublisher, it is possible to publish to a "real" MQTT broker, while storing a copy of the generated message into a file system at the same time. For more information, see File-based MQTT emulation - Implicit Usage in MQTT Transport and File-based MQTT emulation - Examples.

OpcCmd Utility

• The table of dataset header counts, displayed at the end of uaSubscriber subscribeDataSet command execution, is now ordered by publisher Id, writer group dataset writer Id&name, dataset class Id, and origin.
• Added --DistinctHeadersOnly (-dho) option to the uaSubscriber subscribeDataSet command. The options changes the command output so that only dataset header information is displayed, and only when a dataset with a new, distinct header is received. With this option, you can easily collect information about "who is publishing" over a period of time.
• Added --OriginPattern (-op) option to the uaSubscriber subscribeDataSet command. It allows to specify a filtering pattern for the origin of the dataset message. The origin is e.g. a MAC address in the Ethernet transport, the IP address in the UDP transport, or the topic name in the MQTT transport.
• It is now possible to subscribe to an MQTT broker, while storing a copy of the received message into a file system at the same time, e.g. for troubleshooting. For more information, see File-based MQTT emulation - Implicit Usage in MQTT Transport and File-based MQTT emulation - Examples.