The display_name parameter is misleadingly named

[bkeryan]

Bug Report

The MeasurementService.configuration and MeasurementService.output methods have a display_name parameter, which is not the display name but rather the Protobuf field name. The display name is provided by the UI file, and is not required to match the Protobuf field name.

Repro or Code Sample

https://github.com/ni/measurementlink-python/blob/main/ni_measurementlink_service/measurement/service.py#L233

    def configuration(
        self,
        display_name: str,
        type: DataType,
        default_value: Any,
        *,
        instrument_type: str = "",
        enum_type: Optional[Type[Enum]] = None,
    ) -> Callable:

Expected Behavior

Parameter name correctly describes its function.

Current Behavior

Parameter name incorrectly describes its function.

Possible Solution

Rename parameter to name.

Add a keyword-only parameter with the old name (display_name) which defaults to None. If display_name is specified, override name and generate a deprecation warning.

Your Environment

• OS & Device: Windows
• ni-measurementlink-service version: 1.0 through 1.2.0-dev0
• MeasurementLink version: N/A
• Python version: N/A

AB#2457655

[dixonjoel]

@bkeryan Although slightly misleading, this is functional. Can we treat it as a tech debt to avoid the >28d bug limit?

[bkeryan]

Rename parameter to name.

Add a keyword-only parameter with the old name (display_name) which defaults to None. If display_name is specified, override name and generate a deprecation warning.

This doesn't work because the positional parameter is still required.

>           measurement_service.configuration(display_name="float_in", type=DataType.Float, default_value=1.23)
E           TypeError: configuration() missing 1 required positional argument: 'name'

[dixonjoel]

@bkeryan Do you have any other ideas about how to fix this? It's been around for almost 4 months.

[bkeryan]

We should rethink how we handle configuration/output names. It may be better to accept a user-friendly display name and sanitize it for use in protobuf. Or accept a protobuf-style snake_case name and automatically convert to "Sentence case" for the default naming in the UI.