Adding PowerSystems Types

This page describes how developers should add types to PowerSystems.jl Refer to the managing components guide first.

Auto-generating Structs

Most PowerSystems.jl structs are auto-generated from the JSON descriptor file src/descriptors/power_system_structs.json. You can add your new struct here or write it manually when contributing code to the repository

If all you need is the basic struct definition and getter/setter functions then you will likely find the auto-generation helpful.

If you will need to write specialized functions for the type then you will probably want to write it manually.

Refer to this link for more information.

Testing the addition of new struct to the code base

In order to merge new structs to the code base, your struct needs to pass several tests.

1. addition to System
2. retrieval from System
3. serialization/de-serialization

The following code block is an example of the code that the new struct needs to pass

using PowerSystems

sys = System(100.0)
device = NewType(data)

# add your component to the system
add_component!(sys, device)
retrived_device = get_component(NewType, sys, "component_name")

# Serialize
to_json(sys, "sys.json")

# Re-create the system and find your component.
sys2 = System("sys.json")
serialized_device = get_component(NewType, sys, "component_name")

@test get_name(retrieved_device) == get_name(serialized_device)