Merge pull request #383 from quantopian/welcome-to-the-family

symbol as an api_method

zipline/algorithm.py

@@ -486,6 +486,15 @@ class TradingAlgorithm(object):
         for name, value in chain(positionals, iteritems(kwargs)):
             self._recorded_vars[name] = value
 
+    @api_method
+    def symbol(self, symbol_str, as_of_date=None):
+        """
+        Default symbol lookup for any source that directly maps the
+        symbol to the identifier (e.g. yahoo finance).
+        Keyword argument as_of_date is ignored.
+        """
+        return symbol_str
+
     @api_method
     def order(self, sid, amount,
               limit_price=None,

zipline/api.py

@@ -30,16 +30,7 @@ from zipline.finance.slippage import (
 batch_transform = zipline.transforms.BatchTransform
 
 
-def symbol(symbol_str, as_of_date=None):
-    """Default symbol lookup for any source that directly maps the
-    symbol to the identifier (e.g. yahoo finance).
-
-    Keyword argument as_of_date is ignored.
-    """
-    return symbol_str
-
 __all__ = [
-    'symbol',
     'slippage',
     'commission',
     'math_utils',