"id" vs "name" about device_config HOT 9 CLOSED

It appears to be an issue with a way that we used to create happi entries. I've created a couple test devices and it seems nowadays the 'id' is set to the 'name', but looking through the database, there a ton of entries where it looks like the ids came from the devices' prefixes. We should probably transition those over...

from device_config.

OK, I think we should go through these and change it up. Will wait til Zach gets back, though, just in case something is relying on these IDs that we're not aware of.

from device_config.

Nothing is relying on the old ID formulation as far as I know. All applications I'm aware of are doing broader searches rather than using hard-coded names.

The original idea was that no two devices would ever have the same PV, thus it was the static, unique identifier. In practice it was easier to access devices by their shorter name fields.

from device_config.

This actually came up as a point of confusion from LBNL no more than a couple hours after I had submitted the issue.
Both NSLS-II and LBNL wanted to bypass the CLI and directly write JSON, interestingly enough.

That's a fair point about the PV names being unique; name clashes from hutch-to-hutch do seem possible. If we're all OK enforcing a globally-unique name for every device in the database, we should move forward with switching up the IDs.

from device_config.

I'm 👍 on switching the IDs. If you want to avoid name collisions, put your hutch in the name.

I'm not super surprised that people want to bypass the CLI and the IPython interface, but this isn't a good idea in general because the tools exist to help you create a working database. This implies that both of these interfaces need to be improved.

from device_config.

I'm 👍 on moving forward with the changes

from device_config.

And actually, it looks like we don't have any name conflicts :)

In [22]: with open('/Users/pennebak/Documents/GitHub/device_config/db.json') as infile: 
    ...:     db = json.load(infile) 
    ...:                                                                                            

In [23]: newdb = {}                                                                                 

In [24]: for key in db: 
    ...:     for newkey in newdb: 
    ...:         if db[key]['name'] == newdb[newkey]['name']: 
    ...:             print(f'{key} = {newkey}') 
    ...:         else: 
    ...:             #print(f'{key} is good') 
    ...:             pass 
    ...:     newdb[key] = db[key] 
    ...:                                                                                            

In [25]: db['XRT:M1H']['name']                                                                      
Out[25]: 'xrt_m1h'

from device_config.

Awesome!

from device_config.

Closed by #14

from device_config.