Adds a new ``downsample`` method to all computable terms. Computable
terms (Filters, Factors, and Classifiers) can be downsampled to yearly,
quarterly, monthly, or weekly frequency.
The result of ``term.downsample`` is a new term of the same
family (Filter/Factor/Classifier) as ``term``. The downsampled term
computes by delegating to the original term; repeatedly calling its
``compute`` method with length-1 date ranges.
Downsampled terms take advantage of a new ``compute_extra_rows`` Term
method, which allows terms to dynamically request that additional extra
rows of themselves be computed based on the dates for which they're
being computed. This ensures, for example, that a monthly-downsampled
term always computes at the start of a month, even when a
naively-calculated pipeline window would end in the middle of the month.
- Split out extra_rows handling into an `ExecutionPlan` subclass.
`ExecutionPlan` now requires the dates and calendar against which a
set of terms will be computed, and now defers to a term's
`compute_extra_rows` method when deciding how many extra rows are
required to compute for that term. This will allow downsampled terms
to request enough extra rows to guarantee that we can maintain consistent
calculation dates.
As a consequence of the above, `TermGraph` now only deals with logical
dependencies, not with metadata surrounding extra row calculations.
This means that TermGraph can be used to generate dependency
visualizations in interactive contexts where we don't yet have a
calendar or start/end dates.
- Refactored test_{filter,factor,classifier} to use check_terms instead
of run_graph. This makes it easier to make changes to TermGraph,
since the testing interface is now to simply provide a dict of terms.
- Refactored BasePipelineTestCase to use fixtures to create an asset
finder. This fixes a potential leak of the test's asset db, which was
not being explicitly cleaned up.
- Refactored test_technical to use BasePipelineTestCase.
- Added a new special term, `InputDates()`, which can be used to request
date labels for inputs. Like `AssetExists`, `InputDates` is provided
in the initial workspace by default.
- Added a default (failing) `_compute` method to `AssetExists` which
provides a more useful error than AttributeError.
- Adds a new class, ``LabelArray``, which is a subclass of np.ndarray.
LabelArray is conceptually similar to pandas.Categorical, in that it
stores data with many duplicate values as indices into an array of
unique values. For string data with many duplicates (e.g. time-series
of tickers or or industry classifications), this provides multiple
orders of magnitude of improvement when doing string operations,
especially string comparison/matching operations.
- Adds a new generic object "specialization" for `AdjustedArrayWindow`,
and a corresponding ObjectOverwrite adjustment.
- Adds a new ``postprocess`` method to ``zipline.pipeline.term.Term``.
This method is called on the final result of any pipeline expression
after screen filtering has occurred. The default implementation of
``postprocess`` is identity, but Classifier overrides it to coerce
string columns into pandas.Categoricals before presenting them to the
user.
Replace it by distinguishing between "Loadable" and "Computable".
This is useful because it's now possible to write computable terms that
don't require any inputs (e.g. an `Always` filter or an `Everything`
classifier).
Rather than a list that's ordered the same as the received columns.
Most nontrivial loaders were constructing dicts internally and then
converting back to lists, only to have the engine convert **back again**
into a dict. This cuts out the middleman, and prevents bugs due to
incorrect ordering of the output arrays.
Scott Sanderson