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DSS-Python v0.13.0
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@PMeira PMeira released this 29 Mar 00:39
· 138 commits to master since this release
0.13.0
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DSS-Python is a Python package that provides access to the DSS Extensions engine, using DSS C-API and CFFI. This engine is a customized port of the Windows/Delphi code to Free Pascal, including several quality-of-life improvements for Python users. DSS-Python tries to provide a drop-in replacement from the official OpenDSS COM API, while adding some features/extensions. It is also the underlying package used by OpenDSSDirect.py since 2018. If you are new to DSS Extensions, see our FAQ here, as well as https://dss-extensions.org/

Version 0.13.0 has been released on the official Python package repository (PyPI) for Windows, macOS and Linux. This release includes support for Intel x86 and x86-64, ARM platforms, including Apple's M1 and later. Coming in the following days:

  • Some Linux ARM packages will be uploaded later, since they have to be manually prepared at the moment.
  • For Anaconda cloud (channel dss-extensions), packages will also be uploaded in the coming days.
  • The documentation and other sites need to be updated.
  • An upcoming minor release should target plotting, specifically. This releases already handles many types of plot commands, but some are still pending or need to be fixed.

Please feel free to open issues on GitHub or post on https://github.com/orgs/dss-extensions/discussions

Note: Although the majority of features are ported frequently from the official OpenDSS and validated with a large suite of tests, this is not supported by EPRI.

The main differences in behavior compared to the official OpenDSS implementation are listed in https://github.com/dss-extensions/dss_capi/blob/master/docs/known_differences.md

As mentioned in the changelog (copied below), some of the new tests prepared for this version can also serve as examples of some features. For example, see test_general.py/test_threading2 for an example of how to use DSSContexts and Python threads.

Installation

Using pip (Python versions: 3.7 to 3.11):

    pip install dss_python==0.13.0

The binary wheels are also available as attachments on this release announcement.

Since this release, there are two manylinux wheels to address recent changes in the Python ecosystem. If you encounter issues installing on Linux, be sure to update your pip and wheel packages before reporting a problem (versions too old may fail).

For PyPy, we recommend the users to build the wheels. If you'd like to use PyPy but aren't able to easily build the packages, please report here on GitHub.

DSS-Python 0.13.0: changes since 0.12.1

  • Engine updated to DSS C-API 0.13.0, which is very compatible with OpenDSS 9.6.1.1 (plus some official SVN commits up to rev 3595, plus our own changes.
  • New test suite, which runs many more files and validates more of the API. We now use pytest for some more complex tests, while the numeric validation is done with the new compare_outputs.py.
  • New DSS.AdvancedTypes: toggle matrix shapes and complex numbers in many of the properties and functions of the API. This is disabled by default.
  • New DSS.CompatFlags: to address some concerns about compatibility, we added a few toggles to toggle behavior that matches the official OpenDSS more closely. This flags will be refined in later releases.
  • Drop deprecated IR classes and a few undocumented functions.
  • Use more enums throughout the code, which helps both readability and documentation. Some enums were complemented.
  • DSS.AdvancedTypes toggle: enabling AdvancedTypes allows using array/matrix shapes and complex numbers as results from properties/functions in the API.
  • Plotting: Implement several plot types. Only a few issues need to be addressed to consider the plotting system complete!
  • Notebook integration: Initial prototype available. It is enabled automatically when DSS.Plotting.enable() is run in a notebook, providing integration with some DSS messages and outputs.
    • It also registers the %%dss cell magic. Use it in a cell to run DSS-language code directly. We found it useful for exploration and learning.
  • Updated patch_dss_com to patch a few more classes.
  • Drop Python 3.6 support, include 3.11 officially in the tests.
  • DSSContext disposal: use CFFI to track the disposal of the contexts instead of manually tracking. This could remove memory leaks if you application creates too many DSSContexts (which is not recommended).
  • DSS.Obj: remove some redundant properties, fix several issues. While it's not complete yet (some known limitations), you can see the tests for a few examples of how to create circuits without .DSS scripts/files in tests/test_obj.py and tests/test_batch.py -- the first creates each object explicitly, while the second uses batch operations to fill properties from arrays and lists.
  • Add typing_extensions as a dependency to address Python typing needs in the main API code and the new Obj API.
  • Docs: mark more properties as "(API Extension)".
  • Internal code refactoring and clean-up.

Full Git Changelog: 0.12.1-2...0.13.0

DSS C-API 0.13.0 changes

check its repo for more info

  • Clean-up several files to ease the transition from Pascal to C++; more enum usage, remove redundant internal properties, rename some class members, etc. Some final steps still remain (that work is done in private branches).
  • Fixes a couple of minor memory leaks.
  • Removed our old Legacy Models mechanism. Right now, the API functions still exist, but will have no effect when setting and will throw an error. For a future version, the functions will be removed. This toggle was introduced in 2020, some time after the removal of the legacy models in the official OpenDSS. We believe users had enough time to fully migrate and the extra maintenance burden is not justified anymore.
  • Transition some deprecated and buggy properties to throw specific errors, instead of generic messages. Issue: dss-extensions/dss_capi#118
  • Export command: When the user provides a filename, use it as-is, otherwise could be an invalid path in case-sensitive file systems (e.g. Linux, most likely).
  • Dump and Save commands: in some cases, our internal "hybrid enums" were not being converted correctly for dumps. A few classes had incomplete dump implementations since v0.12.0; some strings needed to be escaped for correct output.
  • CtrlQueue: adjust string formatting of items; although this doesn't affect the numeric results, the strings from the queue had some truncated numbers.
  • Property system: For compatibility with the official version, allow autoresizing some arrays when given conflicting number of elements through the text interface or scripts.
  • Like property: Although not recommended and deprecated in the official OpenDSS, the sequence of properties filled in the original copy is also copied. If you use Like, remember to check if the copy actually worked since some classes are known to not copy every property correctly.
  • Plotting and UI: The engine side plotting callback system is now complete. There are fixes for DaisyPlot and GeneralDataPlot, especially multi-platform handling. Changed how some properties are exposed in the JSON interchange to the callbacks. Implement argument handling and callback dispatch for DI_Plot, CompareCases and YearlyCurves.
  • New commands: Fix potential issue with null pointers and duplicate names when DuplicatesAllowed=False.
  • EnergyMeter: Fix error message when the metered element is not a PDElement.
  • CIMXML export: Fix issues present since v0.12.0; reported in dss-extensions/OpenDSSDirect.py#121
  • Parser: properly error out when given excessive number of elements for matrices; implemented due to the report in dss-extensions/OpenDSSDirect.py#122
  • Port most changes from the official OpenDSS up to SVN revision 3595 (OpenDSS v9.6.1.1 + a couple of CIMXML updates); check OpenDSS v9.6.1.1 README.txt for some complementary info to the list below.
    • Relay, UPFC, UPFCControl changes ported.
    • CIMXML exports: Various updates.
    • RegControl: More log and debug trace entries.
    • LoadMult: Set SystemYChanged when changing LoadMult through a DSS script or DSS command (doesn't affect Solution_Set_LoadMult)
    • Port PVSystem, Storage, InvControl, and StorageController changes, including the new grid-forming mode (GFM). For DSS Extensions, we added a new class InvBasedPCE to avoid some redundancy and make things clearer.
    • Port DynamicExp and related functionality. In our implementation, we also add a new class DynEqPCE to avoid some redundant code (could still be improved). the Generator and the new InvBasePCE derive from this new DynEqPCE. Note: the DynamicEq functionality from the upstream still seems incomplete and some things are not fully implemented or maybe buggy, so we only ported now to remove the burden of porting this down the line. If you find issues, feel free to report here on DSS Extensions, but we recommended checking first with the official OpenDSS -- if the issue is also found in the official version, prefer to report in the official OpenDSS forum first so everyone gets the fixes and our implementation doesn't diverge too much.
    • CktElement/API: add a few new functions related to state variables.
    • Circuit, Line: port the LongLineCorrection flag now that it seems to be fixed upstream. Note that we didn't publish releases with the previous buggy version from the upstream OpenDSS (that applied the long-line correction for everything).
    • LineSpacing: port side-effect from upstream; changing nconds now reallocates and doesn't leak previously allocated memory. Not a common operation, so it's not very relevant.
    • CktElement: port code for handling losses in AutoTrans
  • Other API updates:
    • DSSContext API: allow null pointer for the prime/default instance. This should ease the transition. Issue: dss-extensions/dss_capi#119
    • Error API: add Error_Set_Description to allow easier setting an error message from callbacks (this is for advanced usage)
    • Batch and Obj API:
      • For a couple of fast-path operations, add checks for edit state, automatically issuing BeginEdit and EndEdit for the objects in the batch.
      • Allow passing strings (object names) instead of pointers for object references
      • Automatically add new elements to the current DSSContext (since we have not yet published a manipulation API)
      • For symmetric matrices, if the user passes only the triangle, follow the same convention as the Text interface. Includes specific fix for (parts of) complex matrices (like the R or X matrices when internally Z is stored). If the user provides full matrices, the previous behavior was correct, no changes required.
    • Fuses_Reset: fix C header (remove extra/unused parameter)
    • Fuses_Get_State and Fuses_Get_NormalState: add missing string copy. Sometimes this could cause memory corruption.
    • Bus_Get_ZSC012Matrix: check for nulls
    • Bus_Get_AllPCEatBus, Bus_Get_AllPDEatBus: faster implementations
    • Meters_Get_CountBranches: reimplemented
    • Monitors_Get_dblHour: For harmonics solution, return empty array. Previously, it was returning a large array instead of a single element ([0]) array. A small issue adjusted for compatibility with the official COM API results.
    • Reactors_Set_Bus1: Match the side-effects of the property API for two-terminal reactors.
    • New DSS_Set_CompatFlags/DSS_Get_CompatFlags function pair: introduced to address some current and potential future concerns about compatibility of results with the official OpenDSS. See the API docs for more info.
    • New DSS_Set_EnableArrayDimensions/DSS_Get_EnableArrayDimensions: for Array results in the API, implement optional matrix sizes; when setting DSS_Set_EnableArrayDimensions(true), the array size pointer will be filled with two extra elements to represent the matrix size (if the data is a matrix instead of a plain vector). For complex number, the dimensions are filled in relation to complex elements instead of double/float64 elements even though we currently reuse the double/float64 array interface. Issue: dss-extensions/dss_capi#113

Note that a couple of SVN changes were ignored on purpose since they introduced potential issues, while many other changes and bug-fixes did not affect the DSS C-API version since our implementation is quite different in some places.

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