Forecast Solar integration yaml validation

[danmoo117]

Hi, firstly, thanks to everyone who has created and support this great product.

This is very much a nice to have request and I'm only raising it because it caught me out, and it may also catch others who aren't experts with yaml file syntax.

Is it possible to add validation, or at least explicit commentary to yaml lists, specifically where keys should reside within the same list.

This caught me out because under the forecast solar section I added a hyphen before each of the key pairs which was valid but seemingly caused the forecast data to be way higher than actual, probably because it was just going off the post code as that was the first key. This caused Predbat to not charge overnight during cheap slots and then rely on expensive slots during the day because nowhere near enough energy was generated by the solar, when Predbat thought there would be.

Anything to help users understand the syntax better when reading the commentary in the apps.yaml file could stop this happening for someone else.

Cheers.

[gcoan]

thanks for raising, yes YAML structures can catch people out and its critical to get it right

there is a section at the top of the apps.yaml documentation that describes how the YAML should be formatted and links to an explainer video https://springfall2008.github.io/batpred/apps-yaml/#warning-appsyaml-file-format

could you share how you had it mis-formatted and I can see if there is anything further to be added to the documentation.

cheers

[danmoo117]

Yeah sure, this is how it was formatted.

forecast_solar:
  - postcode: 'postcode removed'
  - kwp: 4.0
  - azimuth: 148
  - declination: 30
  - efficiency: 0.90

This malformed yaml and the resulting issue must have been present since I set it up around mid-August, but the good weather and higher solar production masked it. It was only the past few days where actual solar production was significantly lower compared to the forecast did I realise something wasn't right. I presume the Predbat forecast solar integration would have only used the first key pair of the list which is the postcode to get the solar forecast.

[gcoan]

thanks, that's quite a subtle mis-configuration

The child entry configuration in the documentation section I referenced gave a valid example, but didn't warn what an invalid example could be. I will put something explicit in the documentation about this to hopefully help others in the future

[gcoan]

Thanks, I have added:

CAUTION: If you are configuring a child entry with children of its own, then the sub-children all follow under a single hyphen and must NOT be individually hyphenated. i.e.:

forecast_solar:
  - postcode: SW1A 2AB
  - kwp: 4.0
  - azimuth: 148
  - declination: 30
  - efficiency: 0.90

Is invalid YAML for Predbat, it must be entered as:

forecast_solar:
  - postcode: SW1A 2AB
    kwp: 4.0
    azimuth: 148
    declination: 30
    efficiency: 0.90

It will be included in my PR that's waiting Trefor's approval