QCoDeS 0.18.0 - September 2020

Changelog for QCoDeS 0.18.0

The September 2020 release of QCoDeS.

Breaking Changes:

There are no breaking changes in this release of QCoDeS.

New:

• Support nested Measurement context managers; in particular, only create
  one background writer thread for multiple datasets (#2124)
• Interactive widget to explore datasets in Jupyter Notebooks (#1967, #2163)

Improved:

• Jump to value when trying to set a parameter that cannot be set in steps
  (can't be swept) (#2128)
• Raise exception if get_cmd is not defined in a Group of
  GroupParameter s (#2133)
• Add new set_parameters method to Group and remove the old deprecated
  set method (#2137)
• Update ArrayParameter Docs (#2126)
• Add a docs page listing projects to QCoDeS project (#2142)

Improved drivers:

• Keysight B1500: fix measure range bug, measure_config method is deprecated (#2150)
• Remove warning about complex numbers in R&S ZNB driver (#2140)

Under the hood:

• Simplify instrument destructor (#2132)
• Add types to RunDescriber dict representations (#2134)
• Rework RunDescriber and update to version 2 (#2135)
• Allow from_dict_to_current to deserialize RunDescriber from new versions (#2144)
• Add python_requires as key to setup.py (#2123)

Dependencies:

• Constrain all requirements and their dependencies in requirements.txt (#2164)
• Use pip s new resolver when installing dependencies (#2168)
• Fix docs and test requirements to minor version (#2148)
• Restrict pyvisa to less than 1.11 (#2162)
• Install pyqt for python 3.8 (#2157)
• Require latest opencensus packages (#2141)
• Remove no longer needed apt dependecies from travis (#1843)
• Update nbconvert requirement from 5.6.1 to ~=6.0.3 (#2146, #2152, #2160)
• Update pytest requirement from ~=6.0.1 to ~=6.0.2 (#2151)
• Update coverage requirement from ~=5.2.1 to ~=5.3 (#2154)
• Update sphinx-jsonschema requirement from ~=1.16.1 to ~=1.16.2 (#2155)
• Update hypothesis requirement from ~=5.5.5 to ~=5.35.3 (#2158)

QCoDeS 0.17.0 - August 2020

Changelog for QCoDeS 0.17.0

The August 2020 release of QCoDeS.

Note: QCoDeS no longer officially supports Python 3.6.

Breaking Changes:

---

There are no breaking changes in this release of QCoDeS.

New:

---

• Add in-memory cache representation for data of DataSet (#2062)

Improved drivers:

---

• Keithley 2600: Add linefreq to pyvisa-sim yml file (#2100)
• Keysight B1500: convert dummy values to NaN for spot measurement (#2108)

Improved:

---

• Station: Pass name as kwarg so that its order in instrument class is not relevant (#2099)
• Add support for matplotlib 3.3 (#2101)
• fix matplotlib deprecation warning (#2120)
• Docs: update qcodes usage link (#2091)
• Docs: Python version 3.6 is updated to 3.7 in Getting Started->Requirements (#2107)
• Docs: Updating the broken link for conda-environment-update in Qcodes documentation (#2111)
• Update error message for instruments pickling (#2094)
• Fix: convert spyder kernels site print statement to logging message (#2097)

Under the hood:

---

• Move write cache to from DataSaver to DataSet (#2112, #2114)
• remove conda ruamel package to fix pipelines build (#2104)
• Add Codacy and PyPi badges to readme (#2110)
• Add supported python versions badge (#2113)
• Bump sphinx from 3.1.2 to 3.2.1 (#2117)

QCoDeS 0.16.0 - July 2020

Changelog for QCoDeS 0.16.0

The July 2020 release of QCoDeS.

Note: this will be the last QCoDeS release to support python 3.6

Breaking Changes:

---

• math has been renamed to math_utils (#2040).
• The deprecated default_measurement of the Station is now removed (#2058)
• The deprecated methods get_data and get_values of the DataSet have now been removed (#2067)
• The get_setpoints method of the DataSet has been deprecated (#2068)

New drivers:

---

Improved drivers:

---

• The Keithley 2450 driver got a bunch of new parameters and methods (#1970, #2052)
• The Keysight B1500 driver now checks errors after setting each parameter (#2041) and outputs NaN instead of 199.999e99 when compliance is reached (#2074)
• The Keysight B1520A driver saw a bunch of improvements:
  • sweep API was restructured more logically (#2044)
  • the driver now supports all possible impedance models (#2047)
  • the measurement status is retrieved after each sweep (#2050)
  • added get_cmds for sweep_auto_abort and post_sweep_auto_abort (#2049)
• The Keysight B1517A driver had the following improvements:
  • the measurement status is retrieved after each sweep (#2050).
  • added get_cmds for sweep_auto_abort and post_sweep_auto_abort (#2049)
  • added measurement status to current/voltage parameters (#2051)

Improved:

---

• All master-slave references from drivers have been removed or deprecated (#2066)
• QCoDeS now comes with a code of conduct (#2078)

Under the hood:

---

• Better execution of the test suite and hardening of tests (#2016, #2037, #2038, #2039, #2040, #2042, #2045, #2056, #2057, #2063, #2064, #2070, #2073, #2077, #2076). Special highlights from this massive work:
  • The test suite now runs in parallel, a major win for all developers
  • Much better handling of the QCoDeS config system as a result
• Update of dependencies to mypy 0.782 (#2034, #2075) and pyqtgraph 0.11.0 (#2036)
• The measurements.py module is now slightly better type-annotated (#2065)
• Documentation is built with Spinx 3.1.2 (#2069, #2072)
• Added support for (upcoming) pytest 6 and explicit dependency on packaging (#2076)

QCoDeS 0.15.0 - June 2020

Changelog for QCoDeS 0.15.0

The June 2020 release of QCoDeS. This release also includes all the changes
mentioned in alpha release of June 2020 (0.15.0a1).

Breaking Changes:

• GroupParameter.group, Group.parameters and Group.instrument are now all read only properties (#2031).
• The public attributes Group.get_cmd and Group.get_cmd have been removed (#2031).
• It is now an error to supply get/set_cmd, if get/set_raw is not abstract (#2015).
• The sweep parameters such as 'sweep_mode', 'sweep_start', 'sweep_end', 'sweep_steps' in Keysight B1520A driver is moved from class is moved from B1520A class to CVSweeper class (#2044).

New drivers:

• Add Zurich Instruments drivers. The old ZIUHFLI driver is deprecated. The actual implementation is in zhinst-qcodes as described in this blog (#2025).

Improved drivers:

• New features are added to Keysight B1517A driver to allow IV staircase sweep measurements (#2028).
• Various improvements are done on Keysight B1520A driver, such as, parsing correctly the wrong output floats ('-0.-1') from the instrument until new firmware release (#2023), improved testing (#2027), fixing spot measurement of capacitance checking for wrong impedance model, and working with ac_dc_volt_monitor=True (#2020), CVSweepMeasurements supports all impedance models (#2047).
• The measurement status are added to current and voltage parameters of B1517A driver (#2051).
• Added a method to obtain the measurement status summary of IV and CV Sweep measurements (#2050).
• The get functionality for sweep_auto_abort and post_sweep_auto_abort parameters is added in Keysight B1517A and B1520A driver (#2049).
• The error handling of Keysight B1500 driver is improved. Now each time a parameter is set the instruments queries for the error and throws exception is an error is received (#2041).
• Now on_off_val_mapping is used instead of a custom parser in Agilent E8527D (#2030).
• The parameter limits are added for the R&S ZNB-40 VNA R&S (#2029).
• Add a few system functions to the Keithley 2450 driver (#2052)

Improved:

• The DelegateParameter is now allowed to change source and also support a None source (#2005).
• The GroupParameter now correctly update their cache when a single parameter in the group has been set or captured (#2031).
• The GroupParameter now correctly implements mappings between value and raw_value e.g. scale and offset (#2031).
• Snapshot_base introduce new update=None, and use cache in parameter's snapshot_base (#1833).
• Now initial cache value can be set to the Parameter using kwarg initial_cache_val (#1840).
• The snapshots of stations and instruments can also be diffed now using diff_param_values (#2021).

Under the hood:

• New lines are now handled correctly on windows (#2026).
• In the Parameter class, the gettable/settable have become read only property (#2024).
• Parameter cache.get is refactored to make the logic a bit more clear. Its functionality remains the same (#2008).
• The loop data location in channels test is changed for pytest-xdist to work (#2010).
• Added new dependency: "typing_extensions" (#2048)

QCoDeS 0.15.0 - June 2020 first alpha release

Changelog for QCoDeS 0.15.0a1

The June 2020 alpha release of QCoDeS

Breaking Changes:

---

• GroupParameter.group, Group.parameters and Group.instrument are
  now all read only properties (#2031).
• The public attributes Group.get_cmd and Group.get_cmd have
  been removed (#2031).
• It is now an error to supply get/set_cmd, if get/set_raw is not abstract
  (#2015).

New drivers:

---

• Add Zurich Instruments drivers. The old ZIUHFLI driver is deprecated. The
  actual implementation is in
  zhinst-qcodes <https://github.com/zhinst/zhinst-qcodes/>_
  as described in
  this blog <https://blogs.zhinst .com/andrea/2020/05/24/control-your-measurements-with-qcodes-and-labber/>_
  (#2025).

Improved drivers:

---

• New features are added to Keysight B1517A driver to allow IV
  staircase sweep measurements (#2028).
• Various improvements are done on B1520A driver, such as, parsing correctly
  the wrong output floats ('-0.-1') from the instrument until new firmware
  release (#2023), improved testing (#2027), fixing spot measurement of
  capacitance checking for wrong impedance model, and working with
  ac_dc_volt_monitor=True (#2020).
• Now on_off_val_mapping is used instead of a custom parser in Agilent
  E8527D (#2030).
• The parameter limits are added for the R&S ZNB-40 VNA R&S (#2029).

Improved:

---

• The DelegateParameter is now allowed to change source and also support a
  None source (#2005).
• The GroupParameter now correctly update their cache when a single
  parameter in the group has been set or captured (#2031).
• The GroupParameter now correctly implements mappings between
  value and raw_value e.g. scale and offset (#2031).
• Snapshot_base introduce new update=None, and use cache in parameter's
  snapshot_base (#1833).
• Now initial cache value can be set to the Parameter using kwarg
  initial_cache_val (#1840).
• The snapshots of stations and instruments can also be diffed now using
  diff_param_values (#2021).

Under the hood:

---

• New lines are now handled correctly on windows (#2026).
• In the Parameter class, the gettable/settable have become read only
  property (#2024).
• Parameter cache.get is refactored to make the logic a bit more clear. Its
  functionality remains the same (#2008).
• The loop data location in channels test is changed for pytest-xdist to work
  (#2010).

QCoDeS 0.14.0 - May 2020

Changelog for QCoDeS 0.14.0

The May 2020 release of QCoDeS

Breaking Changes:

---

• Community drivers that were shipped with QCoDeS, and were deprecated
  and moved to
  qcodes_contrib_drivers <https://github.com/QCoDeS/Qcodes_contrib_drivers>_
  some months ago, are now removed from QCoDeS.
• Remove deprecated make_unique helper function (#1985)
• Remove deprecated LogCapture that is now in logger.logger module (#1984)
• Remove deprecated DataSet.make_complete method (without "d") (#1978)
• Remove deprecated is_number helper function from measurements.py (#1979)
• Remove deprecated setter for parameter's raw_value property (#1982)
• Remove deprecated layouts/dependencies/paramspecs-related sqlite queries (#1986)
• Remove deprecated zmq_helpers.py with Publisher and UnboundedPublisher (#1983)
• Remove deprecated _save_val method of _BaseParameter (#1980)
• Remove deprecated qcodes.dataset.sqlite_base and qcodes.dataset.database modules (#1981)
• The name and the short_name attributes of the _BaseParameter have become read-only. It is not
  possible to change the name or short_name of the parameter after instantiation. (#1989)

Improved drivers:

---

• Improvements to KeysightB1520A to fix the following two issues. First, is_enabled function outputs
  False instead of throwing an error if channels are not enabled. Second, the values of voltage_dc,
  voltage_ac, and frequency parameters can be raised/decreased at a specified rate by defining the
  step attribute of these parameters. (#1998)
• New method to increase or decrease the range of the Keysight344xx drivers. This method
  can access and search ranges and implements them into the setter. (#1996)
• Coerce KeysightB1500 coefficient for nplc settings to int. The b1500 instrument does not update
  integration time if it receives a non-int value. (#1987)
• Added parameters to KeysightB1520A driver to allow CV staircase sweep. The setup_staircase_cv
  method can be used to set-up the state of the CMU for CV staircase sweep and run_sweep method to
  run the sweep measurements. Look at CV Sweep section of example notebook for more description. (#2011)

Improved:

---

• Parameter name and short name are now a read only property and thus immutable. (#1989)
• Add settable/gettable attribute to Parameter. This enables any user to detect if a
  parameter can be get/set without having to use getattr/hasattr introspection on the parameter. (#1976)
• Fixed DelegateParameter unit test that previously would not run. (#2004)
• Ensure DelegateParameter cache matches source parameter. (#2000)
• Do not overwrite get at init of GroupParameter. (#1994)

Under the hood:

---

• Proper changes in tests of doNd utility so that temporary databases are used.
  This change is necessary for parallel processing of tests. (#2002)
• Exclude pylint version 2.5.0, this version produces ImportError
  on collection of module. (1991)
• Fix for slack module when a user has not send any messages. (#1990)
• Pytest fixtures are now used for tmp dir creation in tests. (#1988)
• Fix test for legacy combined loop necessary for pytest-xdist. (#2009)

QCoDeS 0.13.0 - April 2020

Changelog for QCoDeS 0.13.0

The April 2020 release of QCoDeS

Breaking Changes:

---

• The dictionary station.components['config'] representing a Station
  configuration loaded from a YAML file has been moved to station.config.
  The same change is reflected in the snapshot and the config can now
  be accessed via station_snapshot['config']. (#1913)

• The QCoDeS configuration module has moved from qcodes.config to qcodes.configuration
  to disambiguate it from the current active config which is defined in qcodes.config as always (#1682)

• It is now an error to overwrite get and set in a _BaseParameter subclass. Users have been warned against this
  for a long time (#1946)

• The legacy api such as Loop, active_loop, active_data_set, Measure, DataSet, new_data, load_data, Task, Wait, BreakIf,
  FormatLocation, DataArray, Formatter, GNUPlotFormat, HDF5Format, DiskIO, are no more imported in QCoDeS namespace
  by default. The core config now contains a new flag import_legacy_api that can be set to True if the legacy api
  needs to be imported in the QCoDeS namespace. (#1962)

• The Deprecated log_analysis module has been retired (#1950)

Improved drivers:

---

• Types have been added to init functions of the concrete Keysight DMM drivers classes (#1969)

Improved:

---

• The public QCoDeS api imported from the toplevel qcodes namespace can also be imported from
  their respective modules for ex qcodes.dataset, qcodes.instrument etc. (#1962)
• Complete types have been added to the qcodes station (#1913)
• get_last_run has been improved to match the signature of get_runs (#1960)
• The Snapshot of station.config (and other UserDicts) has been improved so that it can
  be reloaded back into a dict (#1961)

Documentation:

---

• Improvements to several notebooks showing a better way of customizing parameters (#1973)
• An option to execute Jupyter notebooks via Binder has been added (#1943, #1948)
• A note that measurement context managers do not nest has been added (#1949)
• A Typo in a Dynacool docstring has been corrected (#1952)
• A note on limitations in delegate parameter has been added (#1953)
• The attribute documentation for parameter has been improved (#1956)
• B1500 documentation is included in the docs (#1971)

Deprecations:

---

• get_data and get_values methods in dataset have been deprecated (#1941)

Under the hood:

---

• Use pytest retry to re-execute known flaky test (#1940)
• Update azure pipelines images (#1938)
• Remove the debug log from data_set (#1942)
• Code simplifications (#1944)

Recommended dependencies:

---

• Typechecking is performed with mypy 0.770 (#1935)
• Documentation is build with latest sphinx patch release (2.4.4) (#1954)
• Recommended version of h5py is 2.10 (#1955, #1958)
• Hypothesis version installed for testing is limited to <5.6.0 (#1959)
• Python version installed into conda env updated to 3.7.7 (#1963)

QCoDeS 0.12.1 - March 2020 update

Changelog for QCoDeS 0.12.1

This release contains a feature that was announced in 0.12.0 but not correctly included.

New Features:

---

New suite of sweep functions now in QCoDeS! The famous doNd functions
from the Copenhagen labs are now part of the QCoDeS library (#1895).

QCoDeS 0.12.0 - March 2020

Changelog for QCoDeS 0.12.0

The March 2020 release of QCoDeS

New Features:

---

• New suite of sweep functions now in QCoDeS! The famous doNd functions from the Copenhagen labs are now part of the QCoDeS library (#1895).

Breaking Changes:

---

• The DataSet.add_results method no longer returns an int, but now returns None.

New Instrument drivers:

---

• Keithley 3706A High Performance DMM/Switch System. (#1884)
• QDevil QDAC High Precision Voltage Generator. (#1613)

Improved drivers:

---

• Yokogawa GS200 no longer throws snapshot exception during initialization. (#1930)
• Keysight 34465A DMM now returns ±numpy.inf for out-of-range values and not 9e±37. (#1929)

Improved:

---

• The DataSet and Measurement classes now support out-of-thread data saving. Shave off up to 50% of your measurement time! (#1896)

Documentation:

---

No documentation updates in this release.

Deprecations:

---

The methods set_measurement and measure on the Station object have been deprecated.
They relied on the QCoDeS legacy dataset and were not frequently used. (#1937)

Under the hood:

---

• The database version is now 9. An index was added for the captured_run_id. (#1925)

QCoDeS 0.12.0 - March 2020 (prerelease)

Changelog for QCoDeS 0.12.0 Prerelease

The March 2020 release of QCoDeS Prerelease

Breaking Changes:

---

• The DataSet.add_results method no longer returns an int, but now returns None.

New Instrument drivers:

---

• Keithley 3706A High Performance DMM/Switch System. (#1884)
• QDevil QDAC High Precision Voltage Generator. (#1613)

Improved drivers:

---

• Yokogawa GS200 no longer throws snapshot exception during initialization. (#1930)
• Keysight 34465A DMM now returns ±numpy.inf for out-of-range values and not 9e±37. (#1929)

Improved:

---

• The DataSet and Measurement classes now support out-of-thread data saving. Shave off up to 50% of your measurement time! (#1896)

Documentation:

---

No documentation updates in this release.

Deprecations:

---

Nothing deprecated :)

Under the hood:

---

• The database version is now 9. An index was added for the captured_run_id. (#1925)