Configuration

Some behavior of IDAES, especially logging, is configurable through configuration files. IDAES’s configuration is obtained by first setting everything to internal defaults; then loading a global config file, if it exists; then loading a config file from the current working directory, if it exists.

Configuration file are in JSON format. The default configuration is shown below and can be used as a template to create new configuration files. This is the configuration used by IDAES if nothing else is provided.

{
    "use_idaes_solvers":true,
    "logger_capture_solver":true,
    "logger_tags":[
        "framework",
        "model",
        "flowsheet",
        "unit",
        "control_volume",
        "properties",
        "reactions"
    ],
    "valid_logger_tags":[
        "framework",
        "model",
        "flowsheet",
        "unit",
        "control_volume",
        "properties",
        "reactions"
    ],
    "logging":{
        "version":1,
        "disable_existing_loggers":false,
        "formatters":{
            "default_format":{
                "format": "%(asctime)s [%(levelname)s] %(name)s: %(message)s",
                "datefmt": "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S"
            }
        },
        "handlers":{
            "console":{
                "class": "logging.StreamHandler",
                "formatter": "default_format",
                "stream": "ext://sys.stdout"
            }
        },
        "loggers":{
            "idaes":{
                "level": "INFO",
                "propagate": true,
                "handlers": ["console"]
            },
            "idaes.solve":{
                "propagate": false,
                "level": "INFO",
                "handlers": ["console"]
            },
            "idaes.init":{
                "propagate": false,
                "level": "INFO",
                "handlers": ["console"]
            },
            "idaes.model":{
                "propagate":false,
                "level": "INFO",
                "handlers": ["console"]
            }
        }
    }
}

Global Configuration

IDAES configuration files are named idaes.conf. The easiest way to find where the global configuration file should be placed is to run the command idaes data-directory. A global configuration file won’t exist unless a user creates one. The default configuration above can be used as a start.

Windows

On Windows the global configuration file is located at %LOCALAPPDATA%\idaes\idaes.conf.

UNIX-Like

On Unix-like systems the global configuration files is located at $HOME/.idaes/idaes.conf.

Other

On systems that have neither an %LOCALAPPDATA% or $HOME environment variable, global config files are not currently supported.

Important Configuration Entries

The configuration file has several fields, but they are not all important to end-users. This section lists the commonly used entries.

logging

This section of the file configures IDAES loggers. Once the configuration is read, Python’s standard logging.config.dictConfig() is used to set the logger configuration. See Python’s logging documentation for more information.

IDAES has four main loggers defined in the standard configuration, although additional loggers can be added if desired. The standard loggers are:

1. idaes, this is the root logger of most IDAES logging, unless otherwise noted.
2. idaes.init, this is the root of IDAES initialization loggers.
3. idaes.solve, this is the root of IDAES solver loggers and solver information.
4. idaes.model, this is the root of model loggers. Model loggers are usually used by models written using the IDAES framework, but not part of the idaes package.

use_idaes_solvers

This option can be set to false to direct the IDAES framework not to use solvers obtained with the idaes get-extensions command. This can be used if a user would prefer to use solver versions they have installed apart from IDAES.

logger_capture_solver

If a solver call is done from inside a solver logging context, this setting will send the solver output to the logger if true, and not capture the solver output for the logger if false. If solver output is not captured it will be sent to the screen, and not be logged.

logger_tags

Loggers created with the idaes.logging module can be assigned tags. Output from these loggers is recorded if the loggers tag is in the logger_tags set. The default behavior can be configured in a configuration file. The tag set can also be modified at any time via functions in the idaes.logging module.

valid_log_tags

When setting logger tags for idaes.logging loggers they are compared against a list of valid tags. This is done to guard against spelling errors. If the default set of defined tags is not sufficient tags can be added here, or later through functions in the idaes.logging module.