Documentation#

Be sure to check the FAQ. It addresses some common issues.

The quality and volume of documentation across the projects vary. In 2022, the overall documentation effort was launched at the DSS-Extentions hub repository. The new websites, launched in 2024, are based on that.

This main site contains the topics listed at the end of the page. For documentation on specific projects, visit the specific links:

AltDSS engine/DSS C-API library: For the low-level DSS C-API reference, there are files available at the docs folder, and the C header itself is commented for most functions. A Doxygen documentation site covering the main DSS C-API header and the new dss.hpp classes is available at https://dss-extensions.org/dss_capi/.
Our Python packages: DSS-Python, OpenDSSDirect.py and AltDSS-Python have dedicated docs.
OpenDSSDirect.jl: The Julia package has dedicated docs.
DSS_Sharp: Includes integrated XML docs which are distributed with the NuGet package. A compiled site is available at https://dss-extensions.org/dss_sharp/. A step-by-step example is included in dss-extensions/dss_sharp
DSS_MATLAB, AltDSS-Go, AltDSS-Rust: Includes partial help docs. Like DSS-Python, they have very good user-level API compatibility with the official COM implementation. As a result, the official OpenDSS docs may help. Visit the target package repository for more.

An important reminder is that most of the original COM API functionality is exposed in most projects. As expected, the calling convention and general package organization does change from package to package. The API extensions, which include many extra functions and toggles, try to follow the conventions of each package. See the known differences document for an overview of the changes you can expected from using a DSS-Extensions project instead of the official OpenDSS.

Most of the documentation focuses on the API facet. For a reference of the OpenDSS commands and properties at script level, on the DSS basic scripting language, users can refer to the official OpenDSS documentation, or use DSS-Extensions: OpenDSS Commands and Properties as a quick reference until we organize a general documentation covering important aspects of the projects listed here.