[FEATURE] ID attribute to int64

[KennethRuys]

Describe the feature request

Problem faced
At Enexis, the ID's we use in our software systems are from an external system and are in int64 format. Currently we create a mapping from int64's -> int32 for power-grid-model, however this requires additional administration on our end. A team member even mentioned non-numeric id's which also exist in Enexis

Some investigation already done:

• Statically adjust the type for all ID's always to int64
  • The major drawback is the increase in RAM for everyone, also everyone that can use smaller ints
• Dynamically with the introduction on an additional template
  • The major drawback is that every type that inherits from Base needs it in their template and this makes the code less clear in my opinion
• Compile time
  • The major drawback is if-else compile flags through the code

Community Meeting

• I wish to discuss this feature in the bi-monthly PGM community meeting. Please join the PGM community meeting.

[petersalemink95]

Hi @KennethRuys,
This would be an impactful breaking change.
We have to be very careful in considering this feature request.

Power Grid Model has internal IDs that generally need some mapping to IDs on the user side.
For Enexis it might be to Int64, but for other users it could be mRIDs, or something else.

I heard you'll have a call with @TonyXiang8787 to discuss this in more detail.
Please update the issue with your conclusions.

[TonyXiang8787]

@petersalemink95

After offline discussion with @KennethRuys, we have concluded that the most logical approach is to have a user-side mapping between Enexis int64 ID and PGM int32 ID.

PGM is a generic library for multiple users and use-cases, it would not make sense to define several ID data type for each use-case, int32, int64, UUID, etc.

Expansion to int64 is only making sense if we have legitimate network with more than 4 billion objects. This is not expected in the foreseeable future.

This issue is therefore closed.