How to access PSSE working case variables by Python a code - python-2.7

I am a transmission planning engineer and trying to automate the execution of PSSE 100 times or more at one go through a Python code. I already runs, change loads, reruns psse and write bus based summary report to *.csv file. What I really want to do is select the first active power load variable of a PSSE case and increase it by 1 MW. Then run psse, write results to a csv file. Change the selected load back to its original value and move on to the next active load to do the same again and again until I have done same for all load busses.
This will help me to calculate transmission loss factors for entire network with one go.
Thanks

#dsmtlk, if you're experienced in Python, you can readily find the information you need in the PSSE API Manual located in your PSSE program folder (mine is in C:\Program Files (x86)\PTI\PSSE33\DOCS). The API routines for getting bus data are in section 8.6. The routine for changing bus data—viz., psspy.load_data_4()—is in section 2.21.
If you're new to Python, here are a couple links I found helpful when I first started:
https://docs.python.org/2/tutorial/
http://www.tutorialspoint.com/python/

Related

out of space SAS studio engine V9- MAC

I was trying to practice with a dataset having more than 100K rows and my SAS UE shows error as out of space while trying statistical analysis,after some google search I found some solutions like extending disk space in VM and cleaning work libraries(I did clean the work library using "proc datasets library=WORK kill; run; quit;" but the issue remains same) but I am not sure how to increase the disk space, or redirecting work library to local storage in my Mac. There are no proper guidelines I have seen/understood from google search. Please help.
You can modify the cores on the VM to be 2 and increase the RAM space in the Oracle VB settings. You cannot increase the size of the VM and 100K rows should not be problematic unless you're not cleaning up processes.
Yes, SAS UE does have a tendency to not clean up after crashes so eventually if you've crashed it multiple times you'll have to reinstall to clean up. You can get around this by reassigning the work library. A quick way to do this is in projects that will be affecting it set the USER library to your myfolders or another space on your computer.
libname user '/folders/myfolders/tempWSpace';
Make sure you first create the folder under myfolders. Then any single level data set (no libname) will automatically be stored in user library and you should be ok to run your code.

Cumilitive log in SAS EG

Long story short - Familiar with BASE 9, now using EG (7.1) due to a new role with another company. The transition is painful, but there is one thing that bothers me the most and that is the log.
As I am sure most know, it will rewrite/refresh for every piece of code you execute.
Surely there must be an option to maintain a "running log" within the SAS code you are running/building (not necessarily for the whole project, but just for the program node within the project).
Can this be done?
Any assistance is greatly appreciated. Searched for some reference, but none citing the subject specifically.
Yes - from SAS's support pages:
You’ll notice that a separate log node is generated for each code node. By turning on Project Logging, you can
easily tell Enterprise Guide that you’d like a single SAS log to be generated for all of the tasks and code nodes in your
Project. This single Project Log will be created in addition to the individual logs created for each task or code node.
Helpful Hint: If Project Logging is turned on, the log represents a running log of the entire project. To
turn on the Project Logging, select Project Log in the Context Menu of the Process Flow, and then select
Turn On.

Disable application after expiry date for trial

I am writing a simple application for a semi-trusted client, and have no say on certain specifics. The client must be given a copy of a binary, myTestApp, which makes use of proprietary code in an external library, libsecrets. It is a Windows application that will run on a few separate Windows 7 laptops. I have been informed that after the application has served its purpose, it will be deleted. I know there is no perfect solution to this, but I would like to implement an expiry date in the program, and hinder efforts to potentially reverse engineer the code, or at least to prevent the contents of libsecrets from being exposed too easily.
So, my first step will be to statically link myTestApp against libsecrets so everything is contained in one binary, so only the needed pieces of libsecrets is included in the final binary, and its interfaces are no longer published.
Second, I want to implement some sort of getTime mechanism that is not naive. Is there anything in Windows that does a "secure" getTime call, so it can't be tricked by changing the time in the system tray or the BIOS?
Thirdly, if there is no "secure" getTime call, I could also modify myTestApp to use NTP to query a trusted time server, and fail if it can't get the time from it or the trial period has elapsed. But this could be fooled by messing with DNS on the gateway, unless there is some sort of certificates mechanism in place to verify the time server. I don't know much about this though, and would need some suggestions on how to implement it.
Next, is there some way to alter the binary so that it is impractical for individuals to attempt to reverse engineer it by viewing the assembly code? Maybe some sort of wrapper that encrypts the binary and requires a third-party authentication tool? Or maybe some sort of certificate I create that is required to run it and expires later?
Finally, is there any software out there (ie: packaging or publishing software) that can do this for me, either by repacking the final .exe or as some sort of plugin for Microsoft Visual Studio?
Thank you all in advance.
Edit: This is NOT meant to be a bullet proof system, and if it fails, that is acceptable. I just want to make it inconvenient for a non-technical person to attempt to crack. The people using it are technical Luddites, and the only way the software would be cracked is if they hired someone to do it. Since the names and company name are watermarked into the application, and only one person could benefit from its use, it's unlikely they would redistribute it.
You can't make things complete secure, but you can make it hard(er).
Packing with UPX adds some level of complexity to the hacker.
You can check at runtime if you're running under a debugger in several places or if you're running under a virtual machine.
You can encrypt a DLL you're using and load it manually (complicated).
You can write a loader that checks a hash of your application and your application can check the hash of the loader.
You can get the system time and compare it to a system time you already wrote to disk and see that it's monotonic.
All depends on the level of protection you want.
If you go to PirateBay or any other torrent site, you'll see that everything get's hacked if hackers are interested.
There is one way to make it really difficult for them to use it after expiry. The main theme of this trick is to make your expiration date independent of system time and make it depend on hours passed, irrespective of whatever the system time may be.
you will have to create a separate thread to perform this task.
Suppose you want the application to expire after they use it 70 hours.
Create a binary file called "record", and store any number in it, which should be hard to guess (I will tell you latter why you have to put this number in binary file).
When your application starts, it checks if that number is present there if yes, your application should get the current time, and store it in that file along with hour=1 (replacing the already present number), and the thread you created should keep on checking if hour in system time has changed or not, when it changes store current time in that file along with hour=2. A time will come when hour=70.
Add this code at two places inside that thread and on the start of your applicaiton
/*the purpose of storing current time is to find out later if hour has changed or not*/
/*read hour from file.*/
if(hour==70)
{
cout<<"Your trial period has expired"<<endl;
return EXIT_SUCESS;
}
now when ever hour=70 application will not work.
Earlier I told you to keep any number in your binary file, when ever they will run your application, binary file will be read and if that number is found there your application will replace it with current time and hour=1, now suppose they use your application for 5 hours and close it and run it after some time, now when your application will be run it will check that binary file if that number has been replaced with time stored previously and hour=5 it means now you will have to store current time along with hour=stored hour in file +1; . In this even if they change time or do anything else it will not effect your expiration period. Because now your expiration checking is not based on system time any more, it is now based on hours passed, irrespective whatever the time may be.
The absence of that number indicates file is not being accessed for first time and currently present hour in file should be incremented, and use binary file so that client can't see that number.
One last thing
Your binary file's format should be like this
current time, hour="any number", another_secret_number
another_secret_number will be placed so that even if they any how change your binary they will not be able to put that another_secret_number there because they don't know it. It means while reading your binary file you will have to make sure that, the end of any entry in your binary file contains "another_secret_number" at end.
For checking purposes both hidden numbers will also be hard coded in your code, which surely they can't see, and they can't read the binary also, so there is no way they can know them.
I hope it will help you.
Nothing stop the hackers!!!
Your question is like a a searching needle at the hay.
Assembly is large room for the responses.
You may thing only hrder, nothing, never stop 'bad' persons.
For UPX: Is well known, dont use it!!!

Linked directory not found

I have following scenario:
The main software I wrote uses a database created by a simulator. This database is around 10 GB big at the moment, so I want to keep only one copy of that data per system.
Assuming I have following projects:
Main Software using the data, located at /SimData
DLL using the data for debugging, searching for data at /SimData
Debugging tool to parse the image database, searching for the data at /SimData
Since I do not want to have all those programs have their own copy of SimData (not only to decrease place used, but also to ensure that all Simulation data used is always up to date for all programs).
I created for the DLL and Debugging Utility a link named SimData to MainSoftware/SimData, but when opening a file with "SimData\MyFile.data" it cannot find it, only the MainSoftware with the ACTUAL SimData folder can find it.
How can I use the MainSoftware/SimData folder without setting absolute paths?
This is on Windows 7 x64
I agree with Peter about adding the DB location as a configurable parameter. A common place to store that is in the registry.
however, If you want to create links that will be recognized by your software, try hardlinks. . fsutil should do the trick as described here.
You need a way to configure the database location. You could use an INI or other configuration file, or a registry setting, or a command-line input, or an environment variable. Or You could write your program to search a directory hierarchy... for example, if the various modules are usually siblings of each other in your directory tree, you could search for SimData/MyFile.data, ../SimData/MyFile.data, ../../MainSoftware/SimData/Myfile.data, and use the first one found.
Which answer is the "right one" depends on your situation.

Is there a way to limit the number of output files of a process?

An application of our company uses pdfimages (from xpdf) to check whether some pages in a PDF files, on which we know there is no text, consist of one image.
For this we run pdfimages on that page and count whether only one, two or more, or zero output files have been created (could be JPG, PPM, PGM or PPM).
The problem is that for some PDF files, we get millions of 14-byte PPM images, and the process has to be killed manually.
We know that by assigning the process to a job we can restrict how much time the process will run for. But it would probably be better if we could control that the process will create new files at most twice during its execution.
Do you have any clue for doing that?
Thank you.
One approach is to monitor the directory for file creations: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa365261(v=vs.85).aspx - the monitoring app could then terminate the PDF image extraction process.
Another would be to use a simple ramdisk which limited the number of files that could be created: you might modify something like http://support.microsoft.com/kb/257405.
If you can set up a FAT16 filesystem, I think there's a limit of 128 files in the root directory, 512 in other dirs? - with such small files that would be reached quickly.
Also, aside from my 'joke' comment, you might want to check out _setmaxstdio and see if that helps ( http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/6e3b887c(VS.71).aspx ).