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Provide a warning for unused actuators #10944
Description
General Summary
I debugged a file for quite a while due to weird behavior, only to have the error be a typo in an EMS program.
Detailed Description
There was an actuator named A1. Inside the program there was a SET Al = 2. But because of the typo, the Al variable was just a local variable that was never used. And the actuator was never assigned.
Possible Implementation
A simple flag on each actuator declared in the IDF to check if it was ever assigned seems sufficient. Then at the end of the simulation, a warning could be emitted for any never-assigned actuators.
As an aside, if this was done in Python, then the typo would have caused a failure when looking up the actuator handle, so this is moot there. It may not be worth adding this as we want to nudge people toward the Python side, but it would still be a light lift.
Activity
repro #10944: unused actuator warning never fires
fix #10944: clear initialized on actuator Erl var init
brianlball commentedon Apr 14, 2026
https://github.com/NatLabRockies/EnergyPlus/tree/unused_actuator_warn
fix #10944: Null sentinel initialized=false
fix #10944: add wasActuated flag on ActuatorUsedType
#10944 use static Erl SET scan for unused-actuator check
#10944 remove truly-unused actuators from test IDFs
#10944 fix CI: remove misplaced Python test, drop redundant stream cl…
Merge pull request #11525 from NatLabRockies/unused_actuator_warn