Bug: Numpy type represented as "np.float64(1.234)" instead of "1.234"

[ZackTully]

There is a bug in the amr_wind_standin to emulator' communication. amr_wind_standincreates a list of numbers (some are python native floats and some are numpy floats) calledmessage_from_client_array, which is cast as a string before being passed to emulator' via helics. In emulator this message is read using ast.literal_eval(), which parses the string into a list of only native python types.

Casting a python list to string calls the __repr__() (meaning representation, I think) method on each element in the list. At some point numpy changed this behavior so that instead of returning "1.234" the __repr__ method returns "np.float64(1.234)". This is what was causing the error in the ast.literal_eval call in emulator. The error message was:

error: malformed node or string on line 1: <ast.Call object at 0x2971aafb0>

Originally, I was going to replace the ast.literal_eval call with eval but then I learned this might be dangerous ( https://nedbatchelder.com/blog/201206/eval_really_is_dangerous.html ).

I fixed the bug by casting the amr_wind_standin message to native python floats before sending through helics but a similar issue may pop up again elsewhere.

https://numpy.org/neps/nep-0051-scalar-representation.html#alternatives