QCoDeS [UNRELEASED DRAFT] (2025-12-19)

Breaking Changes:

  • The functionality to export qcodes datasets to XArray/netcdf4 has been significantly improved for datasets where the shape of the data is known from metadata e.g. using dond or similar:

    • The memory overhead of exporting the data has been reduced.

    • The coordinate order is maintained such that data is stored in the order it was measured. Previously data was implicitly sorted by coordinates during the export.

    • When exporting Datasets to xarray where the shape is known, either by the use of utilities such as dond or manually specified, inferred parameters related to the setpoints and measured parameters are now included in the XArray Dataset.

    These changed were previously part of 0.54.0 but reverted in 0.54.1 since the change in coordinate sorting was not announced. (#7546)

Improved:

  • The InstrumentModule and its alias InstrumentChannel now take an optional generic argument allowing you to specify the type of the parent instrument for type checking. (#7659)

  • The ChannelTuple class now has multi_parameter and multi_function methods that provide type-safe access to parameters and functions on all channels in the tuple. These methods allow accessing attributes with proper type information, improving IDE integration and type checking. The return type annotation of __getattr__ has been changed to Any reflecting the fact that this is not a type safe interface and it is impossible for a static type checker to infer the type of the dynamic attribute. multi_parameter, multi_function and get_channel_by_name should be used when a more specific type is requested. (#7686)

  • The InterDependencies_ class is now frozen during the performance of a measurement so it cannot be modified. This enables caching of attributes on the class significantly reducing the overhead of measurements. (#7712)

Improved Drivers:

  • The KeysightE4980A driver now names the correction submodule correctly as correction reflecting the public attribute to access the module. This also means that in the snapshot correction is used as the module name rather than _correction (#7659)

  • Improved sim YAML for Cryomagnetics TM620 and added default terminator. (#7666)

  • The RohdeSchwarzZNBBase, MiniCircuitsRCSPDT, and TektronixTPS2012 drivers now have explicit type annotations on their channels submodule, enabling better type checking and IDE integration. (#7686)

  • In the Rohde Schwarz ZNB drivers QCoDeS functions have been converted to regular methods. This ensures that methods are type checked and can be discovered by IDEs. (#7715)

New Drivers: