Should delete! on a component delete stray parameters?

[davidanthoff]

I've run into the following scenario: someone gets a model via the m = ModelName.get_model() function. I then remove a component from m via the delete! function. At this point m now can have a number of external parameters that are not used anywhere. Say one of the left-over parameters if called foo. foo was used by the component that I just deleted.

Now I add a new component that also has a parameter foo. Of course when I call set_param!(m, :compName, :foo, 3) it now errors because m already has a parameter called foo.

I'm not sure what the right behavior here would be, and maybe the current one is actually correct....

But here are some alternative options:

1. delete! on a component could delete stray parameters like foo. That seems a bit drastic, though... Maybe we need a keyword argument also_delete_stray_params that one can use if one wants to get rid of stray parameters?
2. or is this really a scenario where the replace component functionality should be used?
3. do we have a function that deletes an external parameter from a model?

Also CCing @FrankErrickson, what he thinks might be useful here.

[davidanthoff]

@ckingdon95 and I decided to go with option 1. Just need a good name for the keyword argument. delete_unused_model_params was one idea.