October 2019

Changelog for QCoDeS 0.7.0

The October 2019 release of QCoDeS

New:

---

• Introduce a new kind of deprecation warning (#1752). Users, please take deprecation warnings seriously. See also breaking changes below.

Improved:

---

• API documentation improved! (#1725)

Improved Drivers:

---

• Keithley 2600 Sourcemeter: now implements a time trace parameter and autorange functionality (#1684)
• Keysight 344xxA Digital Multimeter: now implements a time trace parameter (#1750)
• Keysight B 1500 Parameter Analyzer: now supports phase compensation, open compensation, clear frequency list, and abort measurement (#1704) and reading the error message (#1758)
• Lakeshore Model 372 Temperature Controller: Improve the snapshot and add new heater parameter (#1746)
• Dynacool PPMS: the tolerance for when the magnetic field has reached its target is now a parameter (#1754)

Under the hood:

---

• Start supporting python 3.8 (#1723)
• Use importlib-metadata (#1721)
• Fix a bug in create_on_off_val_mapping (#1732)
• Fix a bug in get_shaped_data_by_runid (#1735)
• Use mypy 0.730 (#1738)
• Add type annotations to more of the code base (#1739, #1743)
• Require type annotations in more of the code base (#1747)
• Fix a bug in the handling of instrument metadata (#1740)
• Fix a bug in GroupParameter that prevented the use of initial_value (#1742)
• Make the set_to context manager of parameters more robust and faster (#1749)
• Make the get_latest method of parameters more robust (#1751)
• Make test collection faster (#1755)

Breaking Changes:

---

• Deprecation warnings are no longer issued as DeprecationWarning
  but as a new custom type QCoDeSDeprecationWarning that does inherit
  from RuntimeWarning. The reason for this is that DeprecationWarning s
  are suppressed in the output by default.

• Changes to the YAML format specifying the Station. See The Station notebook <../examples/Station.ipynb>_.
  for examples of how the Station should be configured.

  • Specifying module name of a driver as driver and type is deprecated. Instead the full module path should
    be specified as type and the driver field removed. (#1753, #1760)
  • Specifying the limits of a parameter as a list of comma separated values is deprecated. Instead the limits
    should be specified as an array. (#1756)

Changelog for QCoDeS 0.6.0

The September 2019 release of QCoDeS

New:

---

• Improvements to dataset performance. Especially when doing concurrent reads and writes from the db.
  The QCoDeS experiment sqlite database is now created in WAL mode. Note that if you perform a manual backup
  of a db in wal mode you should also backup any .wal file along with the .db file. See
  https://www.sqlite.org/wal.html for additional details. (#1685)
• New highlevel tutorial for beginners <../examples/15_minutes_to_QCoDeS.ipynb>_. (#1693)

Improved:

---

• Improvements to API docs. (#1660, #1691, #1702, #1706)
• Notebook Dataset Performance: Correct typos and add figure. (#1683)
• Add logging to measurement runner __exit__. (#1695)
• Link tutorial to "Getting started", "README". (#1703)
• Don't use deprecated matplotlib cbar.get_clim. (#1724)
• Make DataSet.paramspecs always return ParamSpec. (#1720)
• Add Station.close_all_registered_instruments. (#1713, #1726)
• Station: fail hard when adding an Instrument with a name that is already registered. (#1714)

New Instrument drivers:

---

• Rigol DS1074Z oscilloscope. (#1652)

Improved Drivers:

---

• Alazar: refactor AcquisitionInterface out of AcquisitionController. (#1694)
• Alazar: Fix reference to method in error message. (#1697)
• Alazar: Simulator. (#1707)
• AMI430: Fix issue with changing field unit. (#1599)
• AMI430 test: fix flakiness from asserting timestamps of Parameters. (#1718)
• Dynacool: Add blocking and non-blocking ramp. (#1586)
• Keysight B1500: Sampling Measurement mode. (#1607)
• Keysight B1500: Show connection message on init. (#1677)
• Keysight B1500: Edit example notebook to set averaging during sampling measurement. (#1696)
• Keysight N6705B: Fix syntax error in parameter. (#1669)
• Keysight B220x: Show connection message on init. (#1677)
• Keysight E8267D: Add missing parameters. (#1705, #1708)
• Lakeshore 325: Add two parameters (resistance, heater_output). (#1711)
• Yokogawa GS200: Exclude/Include snapshot depending on mode. (#1699)

Under the hood:

---

• Significant improvements to import time of QCoDeS. (#1678)
• Updates to requirements. (#1686, #1690, #1688)
• Use recommended way of running xvfb on Travis. (#1687)
• CI: Link commands in all scripts by their exit code, use mostly 'bash'. (#1712)
• Make test GetLatest stricter about timestamps. (#1719)
• Test using python 3.8 prerelease. (#1722)

Breaking Changes:

---

• The default config value for gui.plotlib has changed from "all" to null. This means the
  legacy plot modules MatPlot and QtPlot are no longer imported into the top level qcodes namespace by
  default. To restore the original behaviour change your config file locally.
• capture_dataframe is no longer available from qcodes.logger. To use it import it
  from qcodes.logger.log_analysis.
• Deprecate old QDac driver in favour of QCac_channels driver. (#1578)
• Adding an instrument to the QCoDeS station with an already existing name is now a hard error rather
  than falling back to constructing a new unique name.(#1713)
• Deprecate qcodes.utils.helpers.make_unique as it is unused in QCoDeS. (#1713)

QCoDeS v0.5.2

Changelog for QCoDeS 0.5.2

This is a bug fix release fixing the following issue.

• Use Environment Markers to define python 3.6 only dependencies (#1679)

QCoDeS v0.5.1

Changelog for QCoDeS 0.5.1

This is a bug fix release fixing the following 3 issues.

• Fix dataclasses dependency for python 3.6 (#1675)
• Add progress bars to all database upgrades (#1670)
• Add logging to measurement (#1668)

QCoDeS v0.5.0

Changelog for QCoDeS 0.5.0

The July 2019 release of QCoDeS

New:

---

• ElapsedTimeParameter (#1629)
• load_by_run_spec enables to load data set given run specifications, including the run_id (#1637)
• Linking runs (#1639)
• allow parameters to be excluded from snapshot (#1653)

Improved:

---

• improved docs

  • JSON serializability of snapshot (#1627)
  • Tektronix AWG 7000/5028 resolution docstring (#1628)
  • m4i docstrings (#1638)
  • Configuring QCoDeS, Station notebooks (#1630)

• installed QCoDeS package marked as safe for type checking (#1634)

• log installation info (#1648)

• allow for using application insight for telemetry (#1648)

• use Conda 4.7 (#1635), numpy 1.16.4, matplotlib 3.1 (#1643), sphinx 2.1.2 (#1609), mypy 0.720 (#1640)

• export data to .dat file (#1646)

New Instrument drivers:

---

• Keysight N6705B (#1657)

Improved Drivers:

---

• KeithleyS46 (#1622)
  add method to check whether channel is closed.
  Example: s46.A1.is_closed()
• Tektronix AWG5014 (#1626)
  Fixed validators
• Spectrum M4i add exact_sample_rate parameter (#1654)
• Tektronix DPO7200XX (#1656)
  measurement statistics, measurement state
• Oxford Triton (#893)
  Add magnet control
• Spectrum m4i (#1528)
  fix bug in averaging blockavg
• Keysight E8267D (#1655)
  fix incorrect use of on_off_mapping

Under the hood:

---

• Stop redundantly writing to layouts and dependencies (using run_description instead) (#1572)
• reorganizing sqlite_base.py to facilitate legacy database creation (#1570)
• Base Sphinx makefiles on the modern template (#1636)
• Build travis against all branches (#1644)
• Deploy docs using Azure rather than Travis (#1647)
• Docsbuild: remove old files before checking in and use old style message (#1649)
• Change HDF5FormatMetadata to not sort keys in the metadata (#1581)

v0.4.0, June 2019 Release

Changelog for QCoDeS 0.4.0

The June 2019 release of QCoDeS adds final touches to support for complex-valued data, includes under-the-hood improvements, and ships a couple of new instrument drivers as well as improvements to existing instrument drivers.

New & Improved

• Native support for complex-valued data:

  • Support for plotting complex-valued datasets in plot_by_id (#1592)
  • Reorg Parameter notebooks and add basic complex numbers notebook (#1568)

• QCoDeS Workflow:

  • Add plot_dataset function to plot given data set without specifying id as in plot_by_id (#1614)

• Instruments

  • Fix / snapshot_base params_to_skip_update behavior (#1584)

• Database upgrades:

  • DB version 6 - version contents of run_description column (#1577)

• Old dataset:

  • Change HDF5FormatMetadata to not sort keys in the metadata (#1581)

Instrument drivers

• New Drivers:

  • Keysight B1500 Parameter Analyzer (#1573)
  • Tektronix Oscilloscopes: MSO/DPO5000/B, DPO7000/C, DPO70000/B/C/D/DX, DSA70000/B/C/D, and MSO70000/C/DX (#1579, #1606)

• Improved Drivers:

  • Lock-in Amplifiers:

    • ZI UHF-LI: fix scope_mode and scope_average_weight parameters (#1597)
    • Add jumbo frames and reference clock source parameters to ZIUHFLI (#1590)

  • Magnets:

    • Two fixes for Oxford IPS120 driver. (#1619)

  • Source Meters:

    • Keithley 2600: Add list to hold channels (#1603)

  • QuTech instruments:

    • M4i: fix incorrect return value for ACDC_offs_compensation_x (#1585)
    • M4i: get ACDC offset compensation (#1596)
    • D5a: Add set_dac_unit method (#1582)
    • D5a: Updating vals when unit is updated (#1589)

Miscellaneous

• Documentation: Explicit experiment in notebooks (#1612)

Under the hood

• Use perf_counter, not monotonic for DB flushing (#1498)
• Don't get db location from config if sqlite connection supplied (#1618)
• Don't read from layouts and dependencies tables in QCoDeS (#1572)
• Reorganization of sqlite-facing modules (#1570)
• Reorganization of run descriptions module structure (#1577)

May 2019 release

Changelog for QCoDeS 0.3.0

The May 2019 release of QCoDeS contains a large backend re-structure of the Measurement.DataSaver logic
as well a handful of driver improvements and some new data saving functionalities.

New & Improved

• New and Improved Drivers:

  • Alazar Cards:

    • All models; limit maximum buffer size as documented for AlazarBeforeAsyncRead (#1535)
    • All models; add api instance as initialization parameter (#1524)

  • Arbitraty Waveform Generators:

    • Keysight 33510B: add support for this specific model (#1544)
    • Zurich Instruments HDAWG8; Remove warning when taking snapshot of ZIHDAWG8 (#1561)

  • Lock-in Amplifiers:

    • Zurich Instruments UHF-LI; support all 8 oscillators with MF option (#1546)
    • Zurich Instruments UHF-LI; add parameter to UHFLI driver to select oscillator per demodulator (#1551)

  • Magnets:

    • American Magnetics AMI430; allow a broader range of field limit values (#1558)
    • American Magnetics AMI430; fix coil-constant related bug (#1527)

  • Multimeters:

    • Tektronix Keithley 6500; allow immediate triggering (#1576)
    • Tektronix Keithley 6500; fix invalid SCPI commands (#1541)

  • Source Meters:

    • Tektronix Keithley 2450; add brand new driver! (#1533, #1569)

  • Vector Generators:

    • Keysight E8267D; extend frequency modulation features (#1554)

  • Vector Network Analyzers:

    • Rohde&Schwarz ZNB; make initialization more fail-safe (#1564)

  • Others:

    • Mj2; allow higher gain (#1575)
    • Cryocon; allow the setting of the termination character (#1559)

• Data Saving Features:

  • Allow arrays of different lengths to be stored together (#1477)
  • Allow complex numbers (#1484, #1489, #1493)
  • Infer the SQLite storage type of parameters (#1494)

• Documentation:

  • Increase title consistency (#1553)

• Database upgrades:

  • Schema version bumped to 5; snapshot column always present (#1562)

• QCoDeS Workflow:

  • Extend QCoDeS-Station to be configurable through yaml file (#1560)

Breaking Changes

• The DataSet no longer has an add_parameter method (#1547)

Miscellaneous

• The python package dependencies have been updated (#1550)
• Our copyright is up to date :) (#1552)

QCoDeS 0.2.1

Changelog for QCoDeS 0.2.1

This release fixes two small issues with execution of tests in 0.2.0 (#1540)

QCoDeS 0.2.0

This release contains large number of driver updates as well as significant improvements to the dataset and
documentation. It also introduces a new Parameter Class (ParameterWithSetpoints) that is intended to replace
ArrayParameter.

New & Improved

---

• New and Improved drivers:

  • Alazar cards:

    • Alazar 9870 Don't assign to instrument property (#1182)
    • Alazar add buffer completed callback (#1234)
    • updated/fixed ATS9870 driver (#1290)
    • Alazar remove AlazarParameter support (#1184)
    • Add firmware version to Alazar get_idn (#1308)
    • Add Alazar ATS9373 driver (#1324)
    • Add functions to read and write registers on Alazar and Trigger holdoff for 9360 (#1307)
    • Alazar add get/set parameter (#1523)
    • Alazar: refactor DLL API related things (#1471)

  • Lock-in amplifiers:

    • Fix maximum frequency for SRS860 - it is 500 kHz (#1164)
    • Standford Research SR860 lock-in amplifier driver improvements and bug fixes (#1160)
    • SR86x lockin: get values of many parameters at once (#1245)
    • SR830: Add increment/decrement sensitivity functions. (#1380)
    • driver / SR830 : add the snap XY command to read X and Y together (#1333)
    • Fix SR830's _change_sensitivity function. (#1411)
    • Feature/dem 805/implement sampling rate float parameter (#1510)
    • Feature/dem 804/implement missing uhfli commands (#1500)
    • Driver: ziuhfli - demod{}_harmonic now return int (#1534)

  • Magnets:

    • AMI430 driver setting set point despite being outside safe region (#1162)
    • Driver/Mercury iPS with VISA (#897)
    • driver / add block_during_ramp parameter to AMI430_3D (#1228)
    • Fix / driver / mercury ips / firmware 2.6 (#1385)
    • Homogeneous coordinates for field vectors in Mercury iPS (#1398)
    • Add simultaneous blocking ramp parameters MercuryIPS (#1467)
    • Various IPS120 driver improvements (#1402)
    • Field Vectors attributes should only be floats (#1458)

  • Multi Meters:

    • Keithley 2400 protect read commands (#1171)
    • Refactor Keysight 344xxA code and small fixes (#1169)
    • Fix keithley 2600 formatting (#1301)
    • add driver for keithley6500 (#1233)
    • Driver: Keysight 344xxA - flexible measurements and modularization (#1433)
    • adds a very basic pyvisa-sim yaml for the Keithley 2600 (#1465)
    • Driver/gentec maestro (#1507)

  • Oscilloscopes:

    • Driver/infiniium additional parameters (#1203)
    • Set minimum version of firmware for Rigol DS4000 (#1206)
    • Extend RTO1000 driver (#1410)

  • Signal and Waveform generators:

    • Added support for N5183B Signal Generator (#1153, #1155)
    • Refactor awg file handling in awg5014 driver (#1066)
    • Rigol dg1062 (#1082)
    • Hotfix/awg70000 makeseqxfile (#1213)
    • AWG5208: Consider wait for trigger equivalent to running in wait for trigger (#1283)
    • fix: N52xx various fixes (#1299)
    • Use log instead of print in AWG70000A driver (#1390)
    • Driver/awg5014 upload lomentum sequence (#1381)
    • Feature/keysight 33xx pulsewidth (#1405)
    • Feature/dem 564/driver for zi hdawg8 (#1331)
    • feat: add specs for model '33512B' in KeysightAgilent_33XXX (#1422)
    • Remove deprecated keysight waveform drivers drivers (#1435)
    • Feature/rigol dg1062/adding duty cycle parameter (#1456)
    • [DEM-831] Compiler warnings in ZIHDAWG8 should be logged or raised. (#1522)

  • Spectrum and Vector Network Analyzers:

    • Driver / signalhound use standard logging (#1154)
    • driver/Keysight N5245A (#807)
    • Remove unused function in N52xx driver (#1219)
    • Spectrum analyser update (#1248)
    • Signal hound a few more changes (#1318)
    • Znb read from existing channels (#1111)

  • Temperature controllers:

    • Driver/lakeshore336 and lakeshore 372 (#972)
    • Extension/lakeshore read curve file (#1421)
    • Lakeshore Model 336: make runnable, add minimal test, and fixes along the way (#1526)

  • Others:

    • Change loglevel for send/recv in IPInstrument (#1146)
    • M4i: bugfix spectrum digitizer driver (#1145)
    • Add set_parameter_bounds to IVVI.py (#1128)
    • Reorder initialization of IVVI (#1212)
    • Add new driver for Newport AG-UC8 (#1230)
    • IVVI add missing underscore in parameter name (#1246)
    • Fix decadac docstring (#1282)
    • Remove all remaining uses of get/set in instrument drivers (#1325)
    • Update CryogenicSMS driver (#1346)
    • MiniCircuits: wrong USB packet size resulting in error on Windows 7 (#1366)
    • Minicircuits USB_SPDT catch the correct error (#1376)
    • add M2j driver (#1188)
    • Feature/dem 613/update s5i driver (#1392)
    • Driver dev/switch matrix (#1373)
    • Driver / DynaCool PPMS (#1218)
    • Driver/stahl (#1390)
    • Driver/keithley s46 (#1409)
    • Added driver for Basel current preamplifier. (#1327)
    • add option for pretrigger memsize to channel readout (#1461)
    • Dev/b2200 switch matrix multiple channel connect (#1480)
    • Add boxcar average option to M4i driver (#1509)
    • fix bug in averaging of m4i blockavg (#1528)

• Other changes:

  • Config:

    • allow config to update based on specified path (#1226)
    • Config cleanup (#1242)
    • Bugfix: fix repr of Config (#1403)

  • Dataset:

    • Add some minor DataSet conveniences (#1211)
    • Make data saver accept numpy type floats/ints (#1225)
    • Dataset Context manager. Allow insertion of Data direcly as arrays (#1207)
    • Fix requirements of ordering of setpoints as dependencies (#1250)
    • Dataset support multiparameter (#1249)
    • String-valued parameters support (#1248)
    • Ensure that post actions are performed in some context managers (#1289)
    • Enhance run table query performance with indices (#1277)
    • DataSaver.add_result 'array' before 'numeric' now works (#1306)
    • Refactor / dataset init method (#1323, #1332)
    • Feature: access snapshot of a DataSet, and docs (also, Station bug fix + tests) (#1322)
    • Meaningful exception when loading/creating dataset for non-existing run id (#1328)
    • Fix JSON-dumping of snapshots with numpy-typed values (and other) (#1328)
    • qcodes.dataset.* fool-proofing and minor fixes (#1334)
    • Development/dependencies dsl (#1227)
    • Add Subscribers from config (#1365)
    • Improvement / dataset metadata (#1382)
    • DataSet.get_data bugs with start/end arguments (#1386)
    • Add function to fix wrong descriptions (#1396)
    • Feature / let database show version without upgrading (#1395)
    • Fix bug where atomic and ConnectionPlus might not commit to database (+ fix DataSet.unsubscribe) (+ deprecate DataSet modify_results, modify_result, add_parameter_values) (#1389)
    • Feature / database extract runs (#1397)
    • Add get_parameter_data aka get_columns (#1400)
    • Ensure that partial run creation is completly rolled back (#1445)
    • Hashable and Immutable ParamSpec (#1367)
    • Don't allow connection to db that is newer than the one we support (#1454)
    • Dataset: Fixed issue with legacy import (#1459)
    • Add Pandas exporter to dataset (#1423, #1508)
    • Fix issues with infered_from and add checks for infered_from and depends_on that are strings (#1453)
    • Document exporting of data from dataset (#1462)
    • Feature: give DataSet an explicit start method (#1482, #1486)
    • Rename mark_complete to mark_completed (#1495)
    • Cast array params to np array before inserting (#1497)
    • Remove redundant reshape (#1499)
    • fix: Handle 'inf' in _convert_numeric (#1449)
    • Dataset: Fix/do not retrive nulls (#1512)
    • Update Offline Plotting Tutorial with kwargs examples (#1516)

  • Documentation:

    • Build and execute notebooks with nbsphinx (#1330)
    • Documentation improvements (#1349, #1358, #1362, , #1436, #1479, #1485, #1478, #1514, #1515, #1518, #1517)

  • Instruments and Parameters:

    • Add option to remove channels from ChannelList (#1045)
    • Fix validation of steps (#1176)
    • Add paramterScaler with an usage example (#1069)
    • Bug: snapshot fails when instantiating InstrumentBase (#1209)
    • Find or create an instrument without worrying about existing instances (#1210)
    • GroupParameter and Group (for visa commands that set/get more than one parameter at once) (#1232, #1266)
    • Make Array validators shape optionally callable (#1312)
    • Ensure Parameter name is an identifer (#1326)
    • Don't use deprecated add_parameters in tests (#1343)
    • Snapshot diff and method chaining (#1363)
    • Bugfix: removing a channel instance that was added with extend (#1368)
    • Discourage the use of QCoDeS functions (#1378)
    • Extension/dynamic module (#1353)
    • Fix unclarity about post_delay/inter_delay of Parameter, remove deprecated get/set delay and get/set step (#1387)
    • Use getattr to get ask/write from instruments (#1451)
    • New Parameter Class ParameterWithSetpoints (#1263)
    • val_mapping creator function to solve on/off/true/false issue (#1413, #1502)
    • Add origin to parameter warnings (#1481)

  • Legacy dataset:

    • fix read and write of NaN to hdf5, issue (#1180)
    • add flush option to hdf5 write_metadata (#1455)

  • Logging:

    • Log the instrument that a failed parameter update comes from (#1173)
    • Feat / logfile analysis (#1093)
    • logging module (#1309, #1364)

  • Plotting:

    • Feature / add label to plot_by_id (#1235)
    • Feature / rescale ticks and units in plot_by_id (#1239)
    • Smart color scale (#1253, #1255, #1259, #1294)
    • Format ticks for non-SI-unit axis in a more readable way (#1243)
    • plot_by_id: pass kwargs to subplots and plot function (#1258)
    • Fix potential divide_by_zero warning in scale selection (#1261)
    • Plot_by_id rasterise 2d plots for large datasets ...

Fix of corrupt file in v0.1.10

Changelog for QCoDeS 0.1.11

This release fixes a corrupt file in release 0.1.10