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pvlib / pvlib-python

A set of documented functions for simulating the performance of photovoltaic energy systems.
https://pvlib-python.readthedocs.io
BSD 3-Clause "New" or "Revised" License
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move pvsystem.retrieve_sam to iotools #964

Open wholmgren opened 4 years ago

wholmgren commented 4 years ago

What do people think about moving pvsystem.retrieve_sam into the iotools subpackage? First brought up in #436.

kandersolar commented 4 years ago

ivtools is another option. I think of iotools as functions to handle i/o of timeseries weather data specifically. Although I suppose retrieve_sam fetches inverter parameters as well, so ivtools isn't a perfect fit either.

cwhanse commented 4 years ago

I'm in favor of moving it to iotools. I'd like to consider splitting that function into two, to read module and inverter parameters separately.

wholmgren commented 4 years ago

I'm not sure what the practical advantage of splitting the function by module/inverter would be. The API would remain the same in that you'd have to specify a string for the specific module/inverter database. I guess we could have different functions for each database.

https://github.com/pvlib/pvlib-python/blob/f8921bd3879c4bcd9c0242005319729ab04ce7f6/pvlib/pvsystem.py#L1529-L1547

wholmgren commented 4 years ago

@cwhanse do you have any further thoughts on how to refactor this function when moving to iotools?

The adrinverter is a bad fit for a function name that contains "SAM", too.

cwhanse commented 4 years ago

So far we've named iotools functions for the source of the data being read; that patterns suggests read_sam (I've never liked retrieve). I agree if we keep sam in the name it should only read files from sam, so adr would need it's own read function. We could do away with the name argument and return all the library files, just tossing that out.

An alternative, we break the pattern and align read functions to the models, which may be more easily recognized by users, e.g., read_cec_modules, than read_sam.

toddkarin commented 4 years ago

I like read_cec_modules better than read_sam. I'm indifferent on retrieve vs. read.

This would also be a great opportunity to rename parameters to standardization with pvterms.

wholmgren commented 4 years ago

I like the consistency of read_ and the discoverability of e.g. _cec_modules. How about module names? Might need a couple of them depending on the name. Ideas: cec.py, adr.py, sandia.py, sam.py, module_inverter_parameters.py

I agree that it makes sense for new functions to return new keys.