Milestone 8.1

[David Dickinson]

Version 8.1 - our first feature release with the git+Bitbucket workflow - has been a long time coming! Our original plan was for 8.1 to include some large changes to the memory layout and the field solve that would significantly improve performance and scalability. These are not quite ready, but we have accumulated many other features which are currently in next but not in master. We’ve decided to release 8.1 to make these features available, and to get them tested before making other significant changes.

The following unmerged PRs are scheduled for the 8.1 release:

• Bump package version for numpy to make compatible with Ubuntu 20.04

  PR #316 Relax constraints relating naky to ny and ntheta0 to nx in box mode

  Change the default of bouncefuzz to address issue #116

  Ignore absence of explicit source terms in restart files

  Add include_explicit_source_in_restart input flag

  Feature/improve response matrix dumping

   Feature/config type collection

  Bugfix for nperiod > 1

  Feature/remove jenkins

  PR #398 Calculate estimate of error on vspace weights and report to file

  PR #399 Allow number of untrapped pitch angles `ng2` to be set directly in the input file.

  PR #401 Add gds23, gds24 and gds24_noq to the output files

  Add dumping of velocity space weights to dump_grids output PR #400 (to do) and PR #413 (merged)

  PR #405 Add some documentation on writing pfunit tests

  PR #368 Add option to use aslfftw3.f

  PR #359 Use compiler flag for module compilation/search directory

  PR #380 Ensure that when we reset the time step we choose a new time step which no longer violates the cfl relations.

  PR #376 add condition number calculation

  PR #416 Feature : Add lapack support in matrix inversion

  PR #353 ensure maximum timestep stored in restart

  PR #395 Refactor lgridset

  PR #444 Use periodic spline in eeq for periodic boundary values

  PR #447 Bugfix/ensure periodic splines dont use duplicate point

  PR #357 Feature : Error based NL time step estimate

  PR #426 Feature/calculate fields from nonadiabatic dist fn

  PR #435 Feature/decouple geometry theta resolution

  / PR #397 Improve new trap int weights convergence/behaviour - Feature delayed to 8.2 (see PR #523) but code refactor kept.

  PR #269  Change wdriftttp to be distribution function shaped

  PR #429 Move iglo loop into invert_rhs_1 and restructure

   Appends old diag NetCDF output when restarting

   Feature/memory profiling

   Move fieldeq arrays to fieldmat to prevent repeated allocation/deallocation

  PR #471 Update namelist docs

• PR #539 + PR #555 Hybrid electrons

As ever, this list is provisional and evolving, so please feel free to comment or suggest other feature for inclusion!

Key:

merged into next

will be included, but not yet merged

may be included, perhaps require more work/refactoring

delayed until later release

‌

[Joseph Parker]

Version 8.1 - our first feature release with the git+Bitbucket workflow - has been a long time coming! Our original plan was for 8.1 to include some large changes to the memory layout and the field solve that would significantly improve performance and scalability. These are not quite ready, but we have accumulated many other features which are currently in next but not in master. We’ve decided to release 8.1 to make these features available, and to get them tested before making other significant changes.

The following unmerged PRs are scheduled for the 8.1 release:

• Bump package version for numpy to make compatible with Ubuntu 20.04
• Relax constraints relating naky to ny and ntheta0 to nx in box mode
• Change the default of bouncefuzz to address issue #116
• Ignore absence of explicit source terms in restart files
• Add include_explicit_source_in_restart input flag
• Feature/improve response matrix dumping issue 96 [needs tests, dependency on 8.0.5-RC]
• ??? Feature/memory profiling
• ??? Move fieldeq arrays to fieldmat to prevent repeated allocation/deallocation
• ??? Feature/config type collection
• ??? Change wdriftttp to be distribution function shaped
• ??? Appends old diag NetCDF output when restarting

PRs marked ??? may require more work/refactoring.

As ever, this list is provisional and evolving, so please feel free to comment or suggest other feature for inclusion!

‌

[David Dickinson]

We should probably also finish migrating the namelist documentation from the old wiki to the source code for this release.

[David Dickinson]

@Joseph Parker are you able to move your comment into the issue description? Currently we’re not able to edit the comment so I can’t mark a few of these as done (Change the default of bouncefuzz to address issue #116, Feature/improve response matrix dumping issue 96, Ignore absence of explicit source terms in restart files and Add include_explicit_source_in_restart input flag are in next now).

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[David Dickinson]

Of the question marks, I’d like to get Change wdriftttp to be distribution function shaped and probably Appends old diag NetCDF output when restarting in. The second may just need some tidying whilst the first may just need some testing as it modifies/flags some code which looked suspicious.

[David Dickinson]

I’d propose delaying the memory profiling. There’s been some discussion about adopting a different approach which may make subsequent changes easier but would require preprocessing all files. Probably worth resolving that before we put the code in.

[David Dickinson]

Closed through commit 142c787 and release of 8.1.0