Station: fail hard when adding an Instrument with a name that is already registered

qcodes/station.py

@@ -13,7 +13,7 @@
 import qcodes
 from qcodes.utils.metadata import Metadatable
 from qcodes.utils.helpers import (
-    make_unique, DelegateAttributes, YAML, checked_getattr)
+    DelegateAttributes, YAML, checked_getattr)
 
 from qcodes.instrument.base import Instrument, InstrumentBase
 from qcodes.instrument.parameter import (
@@ -184,7 +184,11 @@ def add_component(self, component: Metadatable, name: str = None,
         if name is None:
             name = getattr(component, 'name',
                            'component{}'.format(len(self.components)))
-        namestr = make_unique(str(name), self.components)
+        namestr = str(name)
+        if namestr in self.components.keys():
+            raise RuntimeError(
+                f'Cannot add component "{namestr}", because a '
+                'component of that name is already registered to the station')
         self.components[namestr] = component
         return namestr
 

qcodes/tests/test_helpers.py

@@ -10,7 +10,7 @@
 import numpy as np
 
 from qcodes.utils.helpers import (is_sequence, permissive_range, wait_secs,
-                                  make_unique, DelegateAttributes,
+                                  DelegateAttributes,
                                   strip_attrs, full_class,
                                   named_repr, make_sweep, is_sequence_of,
                                   compare_dictionaries, NumpyJSONEncoder,
@@ -257,17 +257,6 @@ def test_warning(self):
         self.assertEqual(logs.value.count('negative delay'), 1, logs.value)
 
 
-class TestMakeUnique(TestCase):
-    def test_no_changes(self):
-        for s, existing in (('a', []), ('a', {}), ('a', ('A', ' a', 'a '))):
-            self.assertEqual(make_unique(s, existing), s)
-
-    def test_changes(self):
-        self.assertEqual(make_unique('a', ('a',)), 'a_2')
-        self.assertEqual(make_unique('a_2', ('a_2',)), 'a_2_2')
-        self.assertEqual(make_unique('a', ('a', 'a_2', 'a_3')), 'a_4')
-
-
 class TestDelegateAttributes(TestCase):
     def test_delegate_dict(self):
         class ToDict(DelegateAttributes):

qcodes/utils/helpers.py

@@ -352,6 +352,9 @@ def __exit__(self, type, value, tb):
             self.logger.addHandler(handler)
 
 
+@deprecate(
+    reason=("Instrument names are cross process identifiers that should be "
+            "chosen transparently."))
 def make_unique(s, existing):
     """
     make string s unique, able to be added to a sequence `existing` of
@@ -367,7 +370,6 @@ def make_unique(s, existing):
 
     return s_out
 
-
 class DelegateAttributes:
     """
     Mixin class to create attributes of this object by