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What's new

.. currentmodule:: sciris

All major updates to Sciris are documented here.

By import convention, components of the Sciris library are listed beginning with sc., e.g. sc.odict().

Version 3.1.6 (2024-03-31)

  1. Added a new profiler, :class:`sc.cprofile() <sc_profiling.cprofile>`, as an interface to Python's built-in cProfile.
  2. Updated :func:`sc.iterobj() <sc_nested.iterobj>` to include several new arguments: skip will skip objects to avoid iterating over; depthfirst switches between depth-first (default) and breadth-first (new) iteration options; flatten returns object traces as strings rather than tuples; and to_df converts the output to a dataframe.
  3. Pretty-repr functions and classes (e.g. :func:`sc.pr() <sc_printing.pr>`, :class:`sc.prettyobj() <sc_printing.prettyobj>`) now include protections against infinite recursion. sc.prettyobj() was linked back to sc.sc_utils to prevent unpickling errors (partially reversing the change in version 3.1.4).
  4. :class:`sc.dictobj.copy() <sc_odict.dictobj>` now returns another dictobj (previously it returned a dict).
  5. :func:`sc.require() <sc_versioning.require>` has been reimplemented to be faster and avoid pkg_resources deprecations.

Version 3.1.5 (2024-03-18)

  1. Added a new :class:`sc.quickobj() <sc_printing.quickobj>` class, which is like :class:`sc.prettyobj() <sc_printing.prettyobj>` except it only prints attribute names, not values. This is useful for large objects that can be slow to print.
  2. :func:`sc.pr() <sc_printing.pr>` has a new vals=False argument that skips printing attribute values. The default column width was also increased (from 18 to 22 chars).
  3. A new function :func:`sc.ifelse() <sc_utils.ifelse>` was added, which is a shortcut to finding the first non-None (or non-False) value in a list.
  4. Updated :func:`sc.iterobj() <sc_nested.iterobj>` to prevent recursion, and to handle atomic classes (i.e. objects that are not descended into) more flexibly.

Version 3.1.4 (2024-03-11)

  1. Fixed failures of pretty-repr (e.g. :func:`sc.pr() <sc_printing.pr>` and :class:`sc.prettyobj() <sc_printing.prettyobj>`) for objects with invalid properties (e.g., properties that rely on missing/invalid attributes). sc.prettyobj() was also moved from sc_utils to sc_printing.
  2. Added additional flexibility for loading zip files (:func:`sc.loadzip() <sc_fileio.loadzip>`); saving zip files (:func:`sc.savezip() <sc_fileio.savezip>`) now saves text as plain text even with tobytes=True.
  3. :func:`sc.dcp(die=False) <sc_utils.dcp>` now passes die=False to :func:`sc.cp() <sc_utils.cp>`, and will return the original object if it cannot be copied.
  4. :func:`sc.urlopen() <sc_utils.urlopen>` now has additional response options, including 'json' and 'full'.

Version 3.1.3 (2024-02-07)

  1. :func:`sc.equal() <sc_nested.equal>` now parses the structure of all objects (not just the first), with missing keys/attributes listed in the output table. It also now allows for a detailed=2 argument, which prints the value of each key/attribute in each object. (Thanks to Kelvin Burke for this and other features.)
  2. Fixed incorrect keyword arguments (iterkwargs) in :func:`sc.parallelize() <sc_parallel.parallelize>` when using thread or another non-copying parallelizer, when the iterkwargs are not consistent between iterations.
  3. Fixed incorrect printout on the final iteration of :func:`sc.asd() <sc_asd.asd>` in verbose mode.
  4. Fixed incorrect plotting of non-cumulative data in :func:`sc.stackedbar() <sc_plotting.stackedbar>`.
  5. :func:`sc.download(..., save=False) <sc_utils.download>` now returns an :class:`sc.objdict <sc_odict.objdict>` (instead of an :class:`sc.odict <sc_odict.odict>`).
  6. :func:`sc.checktype(obj, 'arraylike') <sc_utils.checktype>` is now more robust to handling non-array-like objects (e.g., a ragged list of lists now returns False instead of raising an exception).
  7. :func:`sc.require() <sc_versioning.require>` now takes an optional message argument, allowing for a custom message if the requirement(s) aren't met.
  8. Removed object from the list of classes shown by :func:`sc.prepr() <sc_printing.prepr>` (since all objects derive from object).

Version 3.1.2 (2023-11-01)

  1. Updated logic for :func:`sc.iterobj() <sc_nested.iterobj>` and added a new :class:`sc.IterObj() <sc_nested.IterObj>` class, allowing greater customization of how objects are iterated over.
  2. Fixed a bug in which 3D plotting functions (e.g. :func:`sc.bar3d() <sc_plotting.bar3d>`) would create a new figure even if an existing axes instance was passed.

Version 3.1.1 (2023-10-29)

  1. :class:`sc.odict <sc_odict.odict>` now supports steps in slice-based indexing, e.g.: myodict['foo':'bar':5] will select every 5th item from 'foo' to 'bar' inclusive.
  2. :meth:`sc.odict.copy() <sc_odict.odict.copy>` now behaves the same as dict.copy(); the previous behavior (which copied an item) is deprecated. Instead of mydict.copy(oldkey, newkey), use mydict[newkey] = sc.dcp(mydict[oldkey]) instead.
  3. :func:`sc.download() <sc_utils.download>` now defaults to expecting filename:URL pairs rather than URL:filename pairs (e.g. sc.download({'wikipedia.html':'http://wikipedia.org/index.html'}), though it can accept either as long as http appears in one.
  4. :func:`sc.parallelize() <sc_parallel.parallelize>` has more robust error handling (previously, certain types of exceptions, such as HTTP errors, were not caught even if die=False).
  5. :func:`sc.load() <sc_fileio.load>` has improved support for loading old pickles, including a new NoneObj class that is used when the user explicitly remaps an old class/function to None.
  6. :func:`sc.sanitizefilename() <sc_fileio.sanitizefilename>` now excludes newlines and tabs even when strict=False.
  7. :func:`sc.runcommand() <sc_utils.runcommand>` now prints out terminal output in real time if wait=False.
  8. Added support for Python 3.12. Note: line_profiler is not compatible with Python 3.12 at the time of writing, so :func:`sc.profile() <sc_profiling.profile>` is not available on Python 3.12.

Version 3.1.0 (2023-08-13)

New features

  1. :func:`sc.equal() <sc_nested.equal>` compares two (or more) arbitrarily complex objects. It can handle arrays, dataframes, custom objects with no __eq__ method defined, etc. It can also print a detailed comparison of the objects.
  2. :func:`sc.nanequal() <sc_math.nanequal>` is an extension of :func:`np.array_equal() <numpy.array_equal>` to handle a broader range of types (e.g., mixed-type object arrays that cannot be cast to float). Other NaN-related methods have also been updated to be more robust.
  3. :func:`sc.manualcolorbar() <sc_colors.manualcolorbar>` allows highly customized colorbars to be added to plots, including to plots with no "mappable" data (e.g., scatterplots).
  4. Added :meth:`sc.options.reset() <sc_settings.ScirisOptions.reset>` as an alias to sc.options.set('defaults').

Bugfixes

  1. Sciris is now compatible with a broader range of dependencies (e.g., Python, NumPy, pandas, and Matplotlib); in most cases, the latest version of Sciris is now backwards-compatible with all dependency versions since January 2021.
  2. Updated :func:`sc.pr() <sc_printing.pr>` to include class attributes (as well as instance attributes), and added a new function :func:`sc.classatt() <sc_printing.classatt>` to list them.
  3. :func:`sc.readdate() <sc_datetime.readdate>` now returns datetime objects unchanged, rather than raising an exception.
  4. Fixed repr for empty :class:`sc.objdict() <sc_odict.objdict>`.
  5. Fixed transposed ordering for :func:`sc.bar3d() <sc_plotting.bar3d>`.

Other changes

  1. :func:`sc.load() <sc_fileio.load>` has been significantly refactored to be simpler and more robust. Pandas' :func:`pd.read_pickle() <pandas.read_pickle>` is now included as one of the default unpickling options. Unsuccessful unpickling now always produces a :class:`Failed <sc_fileio.Failed>` object, with as much data retained as possible.
  2. :func:`sc.jsonpickle() <sc_fileio.jsonpickle>` and :func:`sc.jsonunpickle() <sc_fileio.jsonunpickle>` can now save to/read from files directly.
  3. Updated :func:`sc.toarray() <sc_utils.toarray>` to use dtype=object instead of dtype=str by default; otherwise, all elements in mixed-type arrays (e.g. [1,'a']) are cast to string.
  4. :class:`sc.dataframe <sc_dataframe.dataframe>` has a new equal class method (e.g. sc.dataframe.equal(df1, df2)), and revised equals() and == behavior to match pandas.
  5. Improved robustness of :func:`sc.parallelize() <sc_parallel.parallelize>`, especially when using custom parallelizers, including more options for customizing the global dictionary.
  6. :class:`sc.timer() <sc_datetime.timer>` objects can now be added, which will concatenate all the times.
  7. Added an option to run :func:`sc.benchmark() <sc_profiling.benchmark>` in parallel (to test the full capacity of the machine rather than a single core).
  8. :func:`sc.iterobj() <sc_nested.iterobj>` now provides more options for controlling how the object is iterated, and no longer (by default) descends into NumPy arrays, pandas DataFrames, etc. :func:`sc.search() <sc_nested.search>` also has additional options.
  9. Updated 3D plotting functions (:func:`sc.plot3d() <sc_plotting.plot3d>`, :func:`sc.surf3d() <sc_plotting.surf3d>`, etc.) to have more flexibility of data input, consistency, and robustness.

Version 3.0.0 (2023-04-20)

This version's major changes include:

  1. New Parallel class: A new :class:`sc.Parallel() <sc_parallel.Parallel>` class allows finer-grained managing of parallel processes, including automatic progress bars, better exception handling, and asynchronous running.
  2. Better versioning: New functions :func:`sc.metadata() <sc_versioning.metadata>`, :func:`sc.savearchive() <sc_versioning.savearchive>`, and :func:`sc.loadarchive() <sc_versioning.loadarchive>` make it easier to store and save metadata along with objects.
  3. Faster data structures: :class:`sc.odict() <sc_odict.odict>` and :class:`sc.dataframe() <sc_dataframe.dataframe>` have both been reimplemented for better performance and with additional methods.
  4. Easier imports: :func:`sc.importbypath() <sc_utils.importbypath>` lets you load a module into Python by providing the folder or filename (useful for loading one-off scripts, or two versions of the same library).
  5. Better documentation: A comprehensive set of tutorials has been added to the documentation, and the documentation has been rewritten in a new style.

Improvements and new features

1. Parallelization

  1. There is a new :class:`sc.Parallel() <sc_parallel.Parallel>` class, which is used to implement the (more or less unchanged) :func:`sc.parallelize() <sc_parallel.parallelize>` function.
  2. :func:`sc.parallelize() <sc_parallel.parallelize>` now has a progress argument that will show a progress bar; the returnpool argument has been removed (use :class:`sc.Parallel() <sc_parallel.Parallel>` instead).

2. Dataframe

  1. Better implementation of underlying logic, leading to significant performance increases in some cases (e.g., iteratively appending rows).
  2. Numerous methods have been renamed, modified, or added, specifically: append, col_index, col_name, findind, findinds, merge, popcols, poprow, poprows, and sort.
  3. Keyword arguments are now interpreted as columns, e.g. df = sc.dataframe(a=[1,2], b=[3,4]).
  4. Better handling of (and preservation) of dtypes for dataframe columns, including a new :meth:`df.set_dtypes() <sc_dataframe.dataframe.set_dtypes>` method.
  5. Dataframes now support equality checks.

3. Time/date

  1. Support for pandas and Numpy datetime objects.
  2. New :class:`sc.timer <sc_datetime.timer>` attributes and methods: :obj:`sc.rawtimings <sc_datetime.timer.rawtimings>`, :meth:`sc.sum() <sc_datetime.timer.sum>`, :meth:`sc.min() <sc_datetime.timer.min>`, :meth:`sc.max() <sc_datetime.timer.max>`, :meth:`sc.mean() <sc_datetime.timer.mean>`, :meth:`sc.std() <sc_datetime.timer.std>`.
  3. :class:`sc.timer <sc_datetime.timer>` now displays time in human-appropriate units (e.g., 3.4 μs instead of 0.0000034 s) by default, or accepts a unit argument.
  4. New :func:`sc.time() <sc_datetime.time>` alias for :func:`time.time()`.
  5. :func:`sc.datedelta() <sc_datetime.datedelta>` can now operate on a list of dates.
  6. :func:`sc.randsleep() <sc_datetime.randsleep>` now accepts a seed argument.
  7. More accurate computation of self-time in :func:`sc.timedsleep() <sc_datetime.timedsleep>`.

4. Files

  1. A new function :func:`sc.unzip() <sc_fileio.unzip>` extracts zip files to disk, while :func:`sc.loadzip() <sc_fileio.loadzip>` now defaults to loading the zip file contents to memory. :func:`sc.savezip() <sc_fileio.savezip>` can now save both data and files, and its filelist argument has been renamed files.
  2. If a saved file can't be unpickled, :func:`sc.load() <sc_fileio.load>` now defaults to using dill, and has more robust error handling (see also "versioning" updates below).
  3. :func:`sc.makefilepath() <sc_fileio.makefilepath>` now defaults to makedirs=False.
  4. File save functions now make new subfolders by default
  5. :func:`sc.save() <sc_fileio.save>` now has an allow_empty argument (instead of die='never').
  6. :func:`sc.glob() <sc_fileio.glob>` is a new alias for :func:`sc.getfilelist() <sc_fileio.getfilelist>`.
  7. :func:`sc.thisdir() <sc_fileio.thisdir>` now gives a correct answer when running in a Jupyter notebook.

5. Printing

  1. :func:`sc.progressbar() <sc_printing.progressbar>` can now be used to wrap an iterable, in which case it acts as an alias to tqdm.tqdm().
  2. The new :func:`sc.progressbars() <sc_printing.progressbars>` class will create and manage multiple progress bars, which can be useful for monitoring multiple parallel long-running jobs.
  3. New functions :func:`sc.arraymean() <sc_printing.arraymean>` and :func:`sc.arraymedian() <sc_printing.arraymedian>` can be used to quickly summarize an array. To print rather than return a string, use :func:`sc.printmean() <sc_printing.printmean>` and :func:`sc.printmedian() <sc_printing.printmedian>`.
  4. The new function :func:`sc.humanize_bytes() <sc_printing.humanize_bytes>` will convert a number of bytes into a human-readable number (e.g. 32975281 to 32.975 MB).
  5. The new function :func:`sc.readjson() <sc_fileio.readjson>` will read a JSON from a string (alias to :func:`sc.loadjson(string=...) <sc_fileio.loadjson>`); likewise :func:`sc.readyaml() <sc_fileio.readyaml>`. :func:`sc.printjson() <sc_fileio.printjson>` and print an object as if it was a JSON.
  6. :func:`sc.printarr() <sc_printing.printarr>` now has configurable decimal places (decimals argument) and can return a string instead of printing (doprint=False).
  7. :func:`sc.pp() <sc_utils.pp>` no longer casts objects to JSON first (see :func:`sc.printjson() <sc_fileio.printjson>` for that).
  8. :func:`sc.sigfigs() <sc_printing.sigfigs>` is a new alias of :func:`sc.sigfig() <sc_printing.sigfig>`.

6. Profiling

  1. The new :func:`sc.benchmark() <sc_profiling.benchmark>` function runs tests on both regular Python and Numpy operations and reports the performance of the current machine.
  2. :func:`sc.checkmem() <sc_profiling.checkmem>` now returns a dataframe, can descend multiple levels through an object, reports subtotals, and has an order argument instead of alphabetical.

7. Versioning

  1. A new versioning module has been added.
  2. A new function :func:`sc.metadata() <sc_versioning.metadata>` gathers all relevant metadata and returns a dict that can be used for versioning.
  3. A pair of new functions :func:`sc.savearchive() <sc_versioning.savearchive>` and :func:`sc.loadarchive() <sc_versioning.loadarchive>`, provide a way to automatically save metadata along with an object for better versioning.
  4. Known regressions from older library versions are now automatically handled by :func:`sc.load() <sc_fileio.load>` (e.g., pandas v2.0 dataframes cannot be loaded in v1.5, and vice versa).
  5. :func:`sc.require() <sc_versioning.require>` now has the option to raise a warning instead of an error if a module is not found.

8. Math

  1. :func:`sc.findnans() <sc_math.findnans>` is a new alias for sc.findinds(np.isnan(data)). :func:`sc.rmnans() <sc_math.rmnans>` is a new alias for :func:`sc.sanitize() <sc_math.sanitize>`.
  2. :func:`sc.randround() <sc_math.randround>` now works with multidimensional arrays. (Thanks to Jamie Cohen for the suggestion.)
  3. :func:`sc.smoothinterp() <sc_math.smoothinterp>` now defaults to ensurefinite=True.
  4. :func:`sc.asd() <sc_asd.asd>` now uses its own random number stream.
  5. :func:`sc.cat() <sc_math.cat>` now works on 2D arrays.

9. Dictionaries

  1. :class:`sc.odict() <sc_odict.odict>` now inherits from :class:`dict` rather than :class:`OrderedDict <collections.OrderedDict>`. This makes initialization and some other operations nearly four times faster.
  2. :class:`sc.odict() <sc_odict.odict>` can now be initialized with integer keys.
  3. There is a new :meth:`sc.dictobj.to_json() <sc_odict.dictobj.to_json>` method. :meth:`sc.dictobj.fromkeys() <sc_odict.dictobj.fromkeys>` is now a static method.

10. Nested objects

  1. Nested "dictionary" operations can now act on other types of object, including lists and regular objects.
  2. :func:`sc.iterobj() <sc_nested.iterobj>` applies a function iteratively to an object.
  3. :func:`sc.search() <sc_nested.search>` now works on values as well as keys/attributes.

11. System and platform

  1. The new function :func:`sc.importbypath() <sc_utils.importbypath>` will import a module by path, as an alternative to standard import. :func:`sc.importbyname() <sc_utils.importbyname>` also now accepts a path argument.
  2. The new function :func:`sc.getuser() <sc_utils.getuser>` will return the current username (as an alias to getpass.getuser()).
  3. The new function :func:`sc.isjupyter() <sc_utils.isjupyter>` determines whether or not the code is running in a Jupyter notebook. Default Jupyter plotting has been updated from widget to retina.

12. Plotting

  1. The two Sciris plotting styles, sciris.simple and sciris.fancy, are now available through standard Matplotlib (e.g. pl.style.use('sciris.simple').
  2. 3D plots (e.g. :func:`sc.plot3d() <sc_plotting.plot3d>`) will now render into existing figures and axes where possible, rather than always creating a new figure.
  3. The freeze argument of :func:`sc.savefig() <sc_plotting.savefig>` has been renamed pipfreeze, and frame has been replaced with relframe.

13. Other

  1. A new environment variable, SCIRIS_NUM_THREADS, will set the number of threads Numpy uses (if Sciris is imported first). In some cases, more threads results in slower processing (and of course uses way more CPU time).
  2. The new function :func:`sc.sanitizestr() <sc_printing.sanitizestr>` will sanitize an input string to e.g. ASCII-only or a valid variable name.
  3. :func:`sc.download() <sc_utils.download>` now handles exceptions gracefully with die=False.
  4. :func:`sc.isiterable() <sc_utils.isiterable>` now has optional exclude and minlen arguments.
  5. :func:`sc.flexstr() <sc_utils.flexstr>` now has more options for converting arbitrary or multiple objects to a string.
  6. :func:`sc.transposelist() <sc_utils.transposelist>` has a new fix_uneven argument (previously, elements longer than the shortest sublist were silently removed).
  7. :func:`sc.tryexcept() <sc_utils.tryexcept>` now has to_df() and disp() methods.

Bugfixes

  1. Fixed <= comparison in :func:`sc.compareversions() <sc_versioning.compareversions>` not handling equality.
  2. Fixed the implementation of the midpoint argument in :func:`sc.vectocolor() <sc_colors.vectocolor>`.
  3. Fixed corner cases where some :class:`sc.dataframe <sc_dataframe.dataframe>` methods returned pd.DataFrame objects instead.
  4. Fixed corner cases where some :class:`sc.objdict <sc_odict.objdict>` methods returned :class:`sc.odict <sc_odict.odict>` objects instead.
  5. :func:`sc.findinds() <sc_math.findinds>` now returns a tuple for multidimensional arrays, allowing it to be used directly for indexing.
  6. :func:`sc.rmnans() <sc_math.rmnans>` now returns a zero-length array if all input is NaNs.
  7. :meth:`sc.options.with_style(style) <sc_settings.ScirisOptions.with_style>` now correctly applies the style.
  8. Fixed :func:`sc.daydiff() <sc_datetime.daydiff>` with one argument computing the number of days from Jan. 1st of the current year (instead of Jan. 1st of the provided year).
  9. keepends and skipnans arguments were removed from :func:`sc.smoothinterp() <sc_math.smoothinterp>`.

Regression information

  1. tqdm is now a required dependency.
  2. Calls to :func:`sc.makepath() <sc_fileio.makepath>` and :func:`sc.makefilepath() <sc_fileio.makefilepath>` now need to specify makedirs=True.
  3. :class:`sc.odict() <sc_odict.odict>` is no longer an instance of :class:`OrderedDict <collections.OrderedDict>`.
  4. The returnpool argument of :func:`sc.parallelize() <sc_parallel.parallelize>` has been removed.
  5. For :func:`sc.savefig() <sc_plotting.savefig>`, freeze should be renamed pipfreeze, and frame should be replaced with relframe with an offset of 2 (e.g. frame=2 → relframe=0).
  6. :func:`sc.checkmem(..., alphabetical=True) <sc_profiling.checkmem>` has been replaced with :func:`sc.checkmem(..., order='alphabetical') <sc_profiling.checkmem>`
  7. The Options class has been renamed class :class:`sc.ScirisOptions() <sc_settings.ScirisOptions>`.
  8. sc.parallel_progress() has been moved to sc.sc_legacy. Please use :func:`sc.parallelize(..., progress=True) <sc_parallel.parallelize>` instead.
  9. sc.parallelcmd() has been moved to sc.sc_legacy. Please do not use this function :)

Version 2.1.0 (2022-12-23)

New features

  1. sc.save()/sc.load() now allow files to be saved/loaded in zstandard (instead of gzip) format, since the former is usually faster for the same level of compression. sc.save() still uses gzip by default; the equivalent sc.zsave() uses zstandard by default. sc.save() also now has the option of not using any compression via sc.save(..., compression='none'). (Thanks to Fabio Mazza for the suggestion.)
  2. Functions that returned paths as strings by default -- sc.thisdir(), sc.getfilelist(), sc.makefilepath(), sc.sanitizefilename() -- now all have aliases that return Path objects by default: sc.thispath(), sc.getfilepaths(), sc.makepath(), and sc.sanitizepath().
  3. sc.thisfile() gets the path of the current file.
  4. sc.sanitizecolor() will convert any form of color specification (e.g. 'g', 'crimson') into an RGB tuple.
  5. sc.tryexcept() silences all (or some) exceptions in a with block.

Bugfixes

  1. Fixed bug where sc.save(filename=None) would incorrectly result in creation of a file on disk in addition to returning a io.BytesIO stream.
  2. Fixed bug where sc.checkmem() would sometimes raise an exception when saving a None object to check its size.
  3. Fixed bug where sc.loadbalancer() would sometimes fail if interval was 0 (it is now required to be at least 1 ms).

Other changes

  1. sc.vectocolor() now has a nancolor argument to handle NaN values; NaNs are also now handled correctly.
  2. sc.timer() now has a more compact default string representation; use timer.disp() to display the full object. In addition, timer.total is now a property instead of a function.
  3. sc.thisdir() now takes a frame argument, in case the folder of a file other than the calling script is desired.
  4. sc.getfilelist() now has a fnmatch argument, which allows for Unix-style file matching via the fnmatch module.
  5. sc.importbyname() now has a verbose argument.
  6. sc.promotetolist() and sc.promotetoarray() are now aliases of sc.tolist() and sc.toarray(), rather than vice versa.

Version 2.0.4 (2022-10-25)

  1. sc.stackedbar() will automatically plot a 2D array as a stacked bar chart.
  2. sc.parallelize() now uses multiprocess again by default (due to issues with concurrent.futures).
  3. Added a die argument to sc.save().
  4. Added a prefix argument to sc.urlopen(), allowing e.g. http:// to be omitted from the URL.

Version 2.0.3 (2022-10-24)

  1. Added sc.linregress() as a simple way to perform linear regression (fit a line of best fit).
  2. Improved sc.printarr() formatting.
  3. Reverted incompatibility with older Matplotlib versions introduced in version 2.0.2.

Version 2.0.2 (2022-10-22)

Parallelization

  1. The default parallelizer has been changed from multiprocess to concurrent.futures. The latter is faster, but less robust (e.g., it can't parallelize lambda functions). If an error is encountered, it will automatically fall back to the former.
  2. For debugging, instead of sc.parallelize(..., serial=True), you can also now use sc.parallelize(..., parallelizer='serial').
  3. Arguments to sc.parallelize() are now no longer usually deepcopied, since usually they are automatically during the pickling/unpickling process. However, deepcopying has been retained for serial and thread parallelizers; to not deepcopy, use e.g. parallelizer='thread-nocopy'.

Bugfixes

  1. sc.autolist() now correctly handles input arguments, and can be added on to other objects. (Previously, if an object was added to an sc.autolist, it would itself become an sc.autolist.)
  2. sc.cat() now has the same default behavior as np.concatenate() for 2D arrays (i.e., concatenating rows). Use sc.cat(.., axis=None) for the previous behavior.
  3. sc.dataframe.from_dict() and sc.dataframe.from_records() now return an sc.dataframe object (previously they returned a pd.DataFrame object).

Other changes

  1. sc.dataframe.cat() will concatenate multiple objects (dataframes, arrays, etc.) into a single dataframe.
  2. sc.dataframe().concat() now by default does not modify in-place.
  3. Colormaps are now also available with a sciris- prefix, e.g. sciris-alpine, as well as their original names (to avoid possible name collisions).
  4. Added packaging as a dependency and removed the (deprecated) minimal install option.

Version 2.0.1 (2022-10-21)

New features

  1. sc.asciify() converts a Unicode input string to the closest ASCII equivalent.
  2. sc.dataframe().disp() flexibly prints a dataframe (by default, all rows/columns).

Improvements

  1. sc.findinds() now allows a wider variety of numeric-but-non-array inputs.
  2. sc.sanitizefilename() now handles more characters, including Unicode, and has many new options.
  3. sc.odict() now allows you to delete by index instead of key.
  4. sc.download() now creates folders if they do not already exist.
  5. sc.checktype(obj, 'arraylike') now returns True for pandas Series objects.
  6. sc.promotetoarray() now converts pandas Series or DataFrame objects into arrays.
  7. sc.savetext() can now save arrays (like np.savetxt()).

Bugfixes

  1. Fixed a bug with addition (concatenation) for sc.autolist().
  2. Fixed a bug with the _copy argument for sc.mergedicts() being ignored.
  3. sc.checkmem() no longer uses compression, giving more accurate estimates.
  4. Fixed a bug with sc.options() setting the plot style automatically; a 'default' style was also added that restores Matplotlib defaults (which is now the Sciris default as well; use 'sciris' or 'simple' for the Sciris style).
  5. Fixed a bug with packaging.version not being found on some systems.
  6. Fixed an issue with colormaps attempting to be re-registered, which caused warnings.

Version 2.0.0 (2022-08-18)

This version contains a number of major improvements, including:

  1. New functions: new functions for downloading (sc.download()), paths (sc.rmpath()), and data handling (sc.loadyaml()) have been added.
  2. Better parallelization: sc.parallel() now allows more flexibility in choosing the pool, including concurrent.futures. There's a new sc.resourcemonitor() for monitoring or limiting resources during big runs.
  3. Improved dataframe: sc.dataframe() is now implemented as an extension of a pandas DataFrame.

New features

  1. sc.resourcemonitor() provides memory or CPU limits, as well as monitors running processes.
  2. sc.download() downloads multiple files in parallel.
  3. sc.rmpath() removes both files and folders, with an optional interactive mode.
  4. sc.ispath() is an alias for isinstance(obj, pathlib.Path).
  5. sc.loadyaml() and sc.saveyaml() load and save YAML files, respectively.
  6. sc.loadzip() extracts (or reads data from) zip files.
  7. sc.count() counts the number of matching elements in an array (similar to np.count_nonzero(), but more flexible with e.g. float vs. int mismatches).
  8. sc.rmnans() and sc.fillnans() have been added as aliases of sc.sanitize() with default options.
  9. sc.strsplit() will automatically split common types of delimited strings (e.g. sc.strsplit('a b c')).
  10. sc.parse_env() parses environment variables into common types (e.g., will interpret 'False' as False).
  11. sc.LazyModule() handles lazily loaded modules (see sc.importbyname() for usage).
  12. sc.randsleep() sleeps for a nondeterministic period of time.

Bugfixes

  1. sc.mergedicts() now handles keyword arguments (previously they were silently ignored). Non-dict inputs also now raise an error by default rather than being silently ignored (except for None).
  2. sc.savespreadsheet() now allows NaNs to be saved.
  3. sc.loadspreadsheet() has been updated to match current pd.read_excel() syntax.
  4. Spreadsheet objects no longer pickle the binary spreadsheet (in some cases reducing size by 50%).
  5. File-saving functions now have a sanitizepath argument (previously, some used file path sanitization and others didn't). They also now return the full path of the saved file.

Improvements

Major

  1. If a copy/deepcopy is not possible, sc.cp()/sc.dcp() now raise an exception by default (previously, they silenced it).
  2. sc.dataframe() has been completely revamped, and is now a backwards-compatible extension of pd.DataFrame().
  3. sc.parallelize() now supports additional parallelization options, e.g. concurrent.futures, and new maxcpu/maxmem arguments.

Time/date

  1. sc.timer() now has plot() and total() methods, as well as indivtimings and cumtimings properties. It also has new methods tocout() and ttout(), which return output by default (rather than print a string).
  2. sc.daterange() now accepts datedelta arguments, e.g. sc.daterange('2022-02-22', weeks=2).
  3. sc.date() can now read np.datetime64 objects.

Plotting

  1. sc.animation() now defaults to ffmpeg for saving.
  2. sc.commaticks() can now set both x and y axes in a single call.
  3. sc.savefig() by default now creates folders if they don't exist.
  4. sc.loadmetadata() can now read metadata from JPG files.

Math

  1. sc.findinds() can now handle multiple inputs, e.g. sc.findinds(data>0.1, data<0.5).
  2. sc.checktype() now includes boolean arrays as being arraylike, and has a new 'bool' option.
  3. sc.sanitize() can now handle multidimensional arrays.

Files

  1. sc.urlopen() can now save to files.
  2. sc.savezip() can now save data to zip files (instead of just compressing files).
  3. sc.path() is more flexible, including handling None inputs.
  4. sc.Spreadsheet() now has a new() method that creates a blank workbook.

Other

  1. Added dict_keys(), dict_values(), and dict_items() methods for sc.odict().
  2. sc.checkmem() now returns a dictionary of sizes rather than prints to screen.
  3. sc.importbyname() can now load multiple modules, and load them lazily.
  4. sc.prettyobj() and sc.dictobj() now both take either positional or keyword arguments, e.g. sc.prettyobj(a=3) or sc.dictobj({'a':3}).

Housekeeping

  1. pyyaml has been added as a dependency.
  2. Profiling and load balancing functions have beem moved from sc.sc_utils and sc.sc_parallel to a new submodule, sc.sc_profiling.
  3. Most instances of DeprecationWarning have been changed to FutureWarning.
  4. Python 2 compatibility functions (e.g. sc.loadobj2or3()) have been moved to a separate module, sc.sc_legacy, which is no longer imported by default.
  5. Added style and contributing guides.
  6. Added official support for Python 3.7-3.10.
  7. sc.wget() was renamed sc.urlopen().
  8. Sciris now has a "lazy loading" option, which does not import submodules, meaning loading is effectively instant. To use, set the environment variable SCIRIS_LAZY=1, then load submodules via e.g. from sciris import sc_odict as sco.

Regression information

  1. The default for sc.cp() and sc.dcp() changed from die=False to die=True, which may cause previously caught exceptions to be uncaught. For previous behavior, use sc.dcp(..., die=False).
  2. The argument maxload (in sc.loadbalancer(), sc.parallelize(), etc.) has been renamed maxcpu (for consistency with the new maxmem argument).
  3. Previously sc.loadbalancer(maxload=None) was interpreted as a default load limit (0.8); None is now interpreted as no limit.
  4. Legacy load functions have been moved to a separate module and must be used from there, e.g. sc.sc_legacy.loadobj2or3().

Version 1.3.3 (2022-01-16)

Plotting

  1. Added sc.savefig(), which is like pl.savefig() but stores additional metadata in the figure -- the file that created the figure, git hash, even the entire contents of pip freeze if desired. Useful for making figures more reproducible.
  2. Likewise, sc.loadmetadata() will load the metadata from a PNG/SVG file saved with sc.savefig().
  3. Added sc.animation() as a more flexible alternative to sc.savemovie(). While sc.savemovie() works directly with Matplotlib artists, sc.animation() works with entire figure objects so if you can plot it, you can animate it.
  4. Split sc.dateformatter() into two: sc.dateformatter() reformats axes that already use dates (e.g. pl.plot(sc.daterange('2022-01-01', '2022-01-31'), pl.rand(31))), while sc.datenumformatter() reformats axes that use numbers (e.g. pl.plot(np.arange(31), pl.rand(31))).
  5. Added flexibility for sc.boxoff() to turn off any sides of the box.

Other changes

  1. Added sc.capture(), which will redirect stdout to a string, e.g. with sc.capture() as txt: print('This will be stored in "txt"'). This is very useful for writing tests against text that is supposed to be printed out.
  2. Added quick aliases for sc.colorize(), e.g. sc.printgreen('This is like print(), but green'). Colors available are red, green, blue, cyan, yellow, magenta.
  3. Keyword arguments are now allowed for sc.mergedicts(), e.g. sc.mergedicts({'a':1}, b=2). Existing keywords have been renamed to start with an underscore, e.g. _strict.
  4. Added an every argument to sc.progressbar(), to not update on every step.
  5. Fixed labeling bugs in several corner cases for sc.timer().
  6. Added an explicit start argument to sc.timedsleep().
  7. Added additional flexibility to sc.getcaller(), including storing the code of the calling line.

Version 1.3.2 (2022-01-13)

  1. Additional flexibility in sc.timer(): it now stores a list of times (timer.timings), allows auto-generated labels (sc.timer(auto=True), and has a new method timer.tt() (short for toctic) that will restart the timer (i.e. time diff rather than cumulative time).
  2. Fixed a bug preventing the label from being passed in timer.toc().
  3. Fixed a bug blocking style=None in sc.dateformatter(), and added an argument to allow using the y axis.

Version 1.3.1 (2022-01-11)

Changes to odict and objdict

  1. Major improvements to sc.odict() performance: key lookup (e.g. my_odict['key']) is ~30% faster, nearly identical to native dict(); integer lookup (my_odict[3]) is now 10-100x faster. This was achieved by caching the keys rather than looking them up each time.
  2. Allow dicts with integer keys to be converted to odicts via the makefrom() method, e.g. sc.odict.makefrom({0:'foo', 1:'bar'}). If an odict has integer keys, then these take precedence.
  3. Added force option to objdict.setattribute() to allow attributes to be set even if they already exist. Added objdict.delattribute() to delete attributes.
  4. Removed the to_OD() method (since dicts preserve order, dict(my_odict) is now much more common).
  5. Made sc.dictobj() a subclass of dict, so isinstance(my_dictobj, dict) is now True.
  6. Added sc.ddict() as an alias to collections.defaultdict().

Plotting

  1. Updated sc.commaticks() to use a more thoughtful number of significant figures.

Printing

  1. Fixed a bug in sc.heading() that printed an extraneous None. Also allows more flexibility in spaces before/after the heading.
  2. Fixed a bug in sc.fonts() that prevented using a Path object. Also added a rebuild argument that rebuilds the Matplotlib font cache (useful when added fonts don't show up).
  3. Updated sc.colorize() to wrap the ansicolors module, allowing more flexible inputs such as sc.colorize('cat', fg='orange').
  4. Added output argument to sc.pp() which acts as an alias to pprint.pformat().

Other changes

  1. Removed the pkg_resources import, which roughly halves Sciris import time (from 0.3 s to 0.15 s, assuming matplotlib.pyplot is already imported).
  2. Added option to search the source code in sc.help().
  3. Improved the implementations of sc.smooth(), sc.gauss1d(), and sc.gauss2d() to handle different object types and edge cases.
  4. Fixed requirements for minimal install option.
  5. Removed the openpyexcel dependency (falling back to the nearly identical openpyxl).

Version 1.3.0 (2021-12-30)

This version contains a number of major improvements, including:

  1. Better date plotting: sc.dateformatter() has been revamped to provide compact and intuitive date plotting.
  2. Better smoothing: The new functions sc.convolve()/sc.gauss1d()/sc.gauss2d(), and the updated sc.smooth(), provide new options for smoothing data.
  3. Simpler fonts: sc.fonts() can both list fonts and add new ones.
  4. Simpler options: Need a bigger font? Just do sc.options(fontsize=18).

New functions and methods

  1. Added a settings module to quickly set both Sciris and Matplotlib options; e.g. sc.options(dpi=150) is a shortcut for pl.rc('figure', dpi=150), while e.g. sc.options(aspath=True) will globally set Sciris functions to return Path objects instead of strings.
  2. Added sc.timer() as a simpler and more flexible way of accessing sc.tic()/sc.toc() and sc.Timer().
  3. Added sc.convolve(), a simple fix to np.convolve() that avoids edge effects (see update to sc.smooth() below).
  4. Added sc.gauss1d() and sc.gauss2d() as additional (high-performance) smoothing functions.
  5. Added sc.fonts(), to easily list or add fonts for use in plotting.
  6. Added sc.dictobj(), the inverse of sc.objdict() -- an object that acts like a dictionary (instead of a dictionary that acts like an object). Compared to sc.objdict(), sc.dictobj() is lighter-weight and slightly faster but less powerful.
  7. Added sc.swapdict(), a shortcut for swapping the keys and values of a dictionary.
  8. Added sc.loadobj2or3(), for legacy support for loading Python 2 pickles. (Support had been removed in version 1.1.1.)
  9. Added sc.help(), to quickly allow searching of Sciris' docstrings.

Bugfixes

  1. Fixed edge effects when using sc.smooth() by using sc.convolve() instead of np.convolve().
  2. Fixed a bug with checking types when saving files via sc.save(). (Thanks to Rowan Martin-Hughes.)
  3. Fixed a bug with output=True not being passed correctly for sc.heading().

Improvements

  1. sc.dateformatter() is now an interface to a new formatter for plotting dates (ScirisDateFormatter). This formatter is optimized for aesthetics, combining the best aspects of Matplotlib's and Plotly's date formatters. (Thanks to Daniel Klein.)
  2. sc.daterange() now accepts an interval argument.
  3. sc.datedelta() can now return the actual delta rather than just the date.
  4. sc.toc() has more flexible printing options.
  5. sc.Spreadsheet() now keeps a copy of the opened workbook, so there is no need to reopen it for every operation.
  6. sc.commaticks() can now use non-comma separators.
  7. Many other functions had small usability improvements, e.g. input arguments are more consistent and more flexible.

Housekeeping

  1. xlrd has been removed as a dependency; openpyexcel is used instead, with simple spreadsheet loading now done by pandas.
  2. Source files were refactored and split into smaller pieces (e.g. sc_utils.py was split into sc_utils.py, sc_printing.py, sc_datetime.py, sc_nested.py).

Regression information

  1. To restore previous spreadsheet loading behavior, use sc.loadspreadsheet(..., method='xlrd').
  2. To use previous smoothing (with edge effects), use sc.smooth(..., legacy=True)

Version 1.2.3 (2021-08-27)

  1. Fixed a bug with sc.asd() failing for verbose > 1. (Thanks to Nick Scott and Romesh Abeysuriya.)
  2. Added sc.rolling() as a shortcut to pandas' rolling average function.
  3. Added a die argument to sc.findfirst() and sc.findlast(), to allow returning no indices without error.

Version 1.2.2 (2021-08-21)

New functions and methods

  1. A new class, sc.autolist(), is available to simplify appending to lists, e.g. ls = sc.autolist(); ls += 'not a list'.
  2. Added sc.freeze() as a programmatic equivalent of pip freeze.
  3. Added sc.require() as a flexible way of checking (or asserting) environment requirements, e.g. sc.require('numpy').
  4. Added sc.path() as an alias to pathlib.Path().

Improvements

  1. Added an even more robust unpickler, that should be able to recover data even if exceptions are raised when unpickling.
  2. Updated sc.loadobj() to allow loading standard (not gzipped) pickles and from dill.
  3. Updated sc.saveobj() to automatically swap arguments if the object is supplied first, then the filename.
  4. Updated sc.asd() to allow more flexible argument passing to the optimized function; also updated verbose to allow skipping iterations.
  5. Added a path argument to sc.thisdir() to more easily allow subfolders/files.
  6. Instead of being separate function definitions, sc.load(), sc.save(), and sc.jsonify() are now identical to their aliases (e.g. sc.loadobj()).
  7. sc.dateformatter() now allows a rotation argument, since date labels often collide.
  8. sc.readdate() and sc.date() can now read additional numeric dates, e.g. sc.readdate(16166, dateformat='ordinal').

Backwards-incompatible changes

  1. sc.promotetolist() now converts (rather than wraps) ranges and dict_keys objects to lists. To restore the previous behavior, use the argument coerce='none'.
  2. The start_day argument has been renamed start_date for sc.day() and sc.dateformatter().
  3. The dateformat argument for sc.date() has been renamed outformat, to differentiate from readformat.

Version 1.2.1 (2021-07-07)

  1. Added openpyxl as a Sciris dependency, since it was removed from pandas.
  2. Added sc.datedelta(), a function that wraps datetime.timedelta to easily do date operations on strings, e.g. sc.datedelta('2021-07-07', days=-3) returns '2021-07-04'.
  3. Added additional supported date formats to sc.readdate(), along with new 'dmy' and 'mdy' options to dateformat, to read common day-month-year and month-day-year formats.
  4. Added the ability for sc.compareversions() to handle '<', '>=', etc.
  5. Errors loading pickles from sc.load() are now more informative.

Version 1.2.0 (2021-07-05)

New functions and methods

  1. Added sc.figlayout() as an alias to both fig.set_tight_layout(True) and fig.subplots_adjust().
  2. Added sc.midpointnorm() as an alias to Matplotlib's TwoSlopeNorm; it can also be used in e.g. sc.vectocolor().
  3. Added sc.dateformatter(), which will (semi-)automatically format the x-axis using dates.
  4. Added sc.getplatform(), sc.iswindows(), sc.islinux(), and sc.ismac(). These are all shortcuts for checking sys.platform output directly.
  5. Added sc.cpu_count() as a simple alias for multiprocessing.cpu_count().

Bugfixes

  1. Fixed sc.checkmem() from failing when an attribute was None.
  2. Fixed a file handle that was being left open by sc.gitinfo().

odict updates

  1. Defined + for sc.odict and derived classes; adding two dictionaries is the same as calling sc.mergedicts() on them.
  2. Updated nested dictionary functions, and added them as methods to sc.odict() and derived classes (like sc.objdict()); for example, you can now do nestedobj = sc.objdict(); nestedobj.setnested(['a','b','c'], 4).
  3. Added sc.odict.enumvalues() as an alias to sc.odict.enumvals().

Plotting updates

  1. Updated sc.commaticks() to use better formatting.
  2. Removed the fig argument from sc.commaticks() and sc.SIticks(); now, the first argument can be an Axes object, a Figure object, or a list of axes.
  3. Updated sc.get_rows_cols() to optionally create subplots, rather than just return the number of rows/columns.
  4. Removed sc.SItickformatter; use sc.SIticks() instead.

Other updates

  1. Updated sc.heading() to handle arguments the same way as print(), e.g. sc.heading([1,2,3], 'is a list').
  2. Allowed more flexibility with the ncpus argument of sc.parallelize(): it can now be a fraction, representing a fraction of available CPUs. Also, it will now never exceed the number of tasks to be run.
  3. Updated sc.suggest() to modify the threshold to be based on the length of the input word.

Version 1.1.1 (2021-03-17)

  1. The implementations of sc.odict() and sc.objdict() have been updated, to allow for more flexible use of the defaultdict argument, including better nesting and subclassing.
  2. A new serial argument has been added to sc.parallelize() to allow for quick debugging.
  3. Legacy support for Python 2 has been removed from sc.loadobj() and sc.saveobj().
  4. A fallback method for sc.gitinfo() (based on gitpython) has been added, in case reading from the filesystem fails.

Version 1.1.0 (2021-03-12)

New functions

  1. sc.mergelists() is similar to sc.mergedicts(): it will take a sequence of inputs and attempt to merge them into a list.
  2. sc.transposelist() will perform a transposition on a list of lists: for example, a list of 10 lists (or tuples) each of length 3 will be transformed into a list of 3 lists each of length 10.
  3. sc.strjoin() and sc.newlinejoin() are shortcuts to ', '.join(items) and '\n'.join(items), respectively. The latter is especially useful inside f-strings since you cannot use the \n character.

Bugfixes

  1. sc.day() now returns a numeric array when an array of datetime objects is passed to it; a bug which was introduced in version 1.0.2 which meant it returned an object array instead.
  2. Slices with numeric start and stop indices have been fixed for sc.odict().
  3. sc.objatt() now correctly handles objects with slots instead of a dict.

Improvements

  1. sc.loadobj() now accepts a remapping argument, which lets the user load old pickle files even if the modules no longer exist.
  2. Most file functions (e.g. sc.makefilepath, sc.getfilelist() now accept an aspath argument, which, if True, will return a pathlib.Path object instead of a string.
  3. Most array-returning functions, such as sc.promotetoarray() and sc.cat(), now accept a copy argument and other keywords; these keywords are passed to np.array(), allowing e.g. the dtype to be set.
  4. A fallback option for sc.findinds() has been implemented, allowing it to work even if the input array isn't numeric.
  5. sc.odict() now has a defaultdict argument, which lets you use it like a defaultdict as well as an ordered dict.
  6. sc.odict() has a transpose argument for methods like items() and enumvalues(), which will return a tuple of lists instead of a list of tuples.
  7. sc.objdict() now prints out differently, to distinguish it from an sc.odict.
  8. sc.promotetolist() has a new coerce argument, which will convert that data type into a list (instead of wrapping it).

Renamed/removed functions

  1. The functions sc.tolist() and sc.toarray() have been added as aliases of sc.promotetolist() and sc.promotetoarray(), respectively. You may use whichever you prefer.
  2. The skipnone keyword has been removed from sc.promotetoarray() and replaced with keepnone (which does something slightly different).

Other updates

  1. Exceptions have been made more specific (e.g. TypeError instead of Exception).
  2. Test code coverage has been increased significantly (from 63% to 84%).

Version 1.0.2 (2021-03-10)

  1. Fixed bug (introduced in version 1.0.1) with sc.readdate() returning only the first element of a list of a dates.
  2. Fixed bug (introduced in version 1.0.1) with sc.date() treating an integer as a timestamp rather than an integer number of days when a start day is supplied.
  3. Updated sc.readdate(), sc.date(), and sc.day() to always return consistent output types (e.g. if an array is supplied as an input, an array is supplied as an output).

Version 1.0.1 (2021-03-01)

  1. Fixed bug with Matplotlib 3.4.0 also defining colormap 'turbo', which caused Sciris to fail to load.
  2. Added a new function, sc.orderlegend(), that lets you specify the order you want the legend items to appear.
  3. Fixed bug with paths returned by sc.getfilelist(nopath=True).
  4. Fixed bug with sc.loadjson() only reading from a string if fromfile=False.
  5. Fixed recursion issue with printing sc.Failed objects.
  6. Changed sc.approx() to be an alias to np.isclose(); this function may be removed in future versions.
  7. Changed sc.findinds() to call np.isclose(), allowing for greater flexibility.
  8. Changed the repr for sc.objdict() to differ from sc.odict().
  9. Improved sc.maximize() to work on more platforms (but still not inline or on Macs).
  10. Improved the flexiblity of sc.htmlify() to handle tabs and other kinds of newlines.
  11. Added additional checks to sc.prepr() to avoid failing on recursive objects.
  12. Updated sc.mergedicts() to return the same type as the first dict supplied.
  13. Updated sc.readdate() and sc.date() to support timestamps as well as strings.
  14. Updated sc.gitinfo() to try each piece independently, so if it fails on one (e.g., extracting the date) it will still return the other pieces (e.g., the hash).
  15. Pinned xlrd to 1.2.0 since later versions fail to read xlsx files.

Version 1.0.0 (2020-11-30)

This major update (and official release!) includes many new utilities adopted from the Covasim and Atomica libraries, as well as important improvements and bugfixes for parallel processing, object representation, and file I/O.

New functions

Math functions

  1. sc.findfirst() and sc.findlast() return the first and last indices, respectively, of what sc.findinds() would return. These keywords (first and last) can also be passed directly to sc.findinds().
  2. sc.randround() probabilistically rounds numbers to the nearest integer; e.g. 1.2 will round down 80% of the time.
  3. sc.cat() is a generalization of np.append()/np.concatenate() that handles arbitrary types and numbers of inputs.
  4. sc.isarray() checks if the object is a Numpy array.

Plotting functions

  1. A new diverging colormap, 'orangeblue', has been added (courtesy Prashanth Selvaraj). It is rather pretty; you should try it out.
  2. sc.get_rows_cols() solves the small but annoying issue of trying to figure out how many rows and columns you need to plot N axes. It is similar to np.unravel_index(), but allows the desired aspect ratio to be varied.
  3. sc.maximize() maximizes the current figure window.

Date functions

  1. sc.date() will convert practically anything to a date.
  2. sc.day() will convert practically anything to an integer number of days from a starting point; for example, sc.day(sc.now()) returns the number of days since Jan. 1st.
  3. sc.daydiff() computes the number of days between two or more start and end dates.
  4. sc.daterange() returns a list of date strings or date objects between the start and end dates.
  5. sc.datetoyear() converts a date to a decimal year (from Romesh Abeysuriya via Atomica).

Other functions

  1. The "flagship" functions sc.loadobj()/sc.saveobj() now have shorter aliases: sc.load()/sc.save(). These functions can be used interchangeably.
  2. A convenience function, sc.toctic(), has been added that does sc.toc(); sc.tic(), i.e. for sequentially timing multiple blocks of code.
  3. sc.checkram() reports the current process' RAM usage at the current moment in time; useful for debugging memory leaks.
  4. sc.getcaller() returns the name and line number of the calling function; useful for logging and version control purposes.
  5. sc.nestedloop() iterates over lists in the specified order (from Romesh Abeysuriya via Atomica).
  6. sc.parallel_progress() runs a function in parallel whilst displaying a single progress bar across all processes (from Romesh Abeysuriya via Atomica).
  7. An experimental function, sc.asobj(), has been added that lets any dictionary-like object be used with attributes instead (i.e. foo.bar instead of foo['bar']).

Bugfixes and other improvements

  1. sc.parallelize() now uses the multiprocess library instead of multiprocessing. This update fixes bugs with trying to run parallel processing in certain environments (e.g., in Jupyter notebooks). This function also returns a more helpful error message when running in the wrong context on Windows.
  2. sc.prepr() has been updated to use a simpler method of parsing objects for display; this should be faster and more robust. A default 3 second time limit has also been added.
  3. sc.savejson() now uses an indent of 2 by default, leading to much more human-readable JSON files.
  4. sc.gitinfo() has been updated to use the code from Atomica's fast_gitinfo() instead (courtesy Romesh Abeysuriya).
  5. sc.thisdir() now no longer requires the __file__ argument to be supplied to get the current folder.
  6. sc.readdate() can now handle a list of dates.
  7. sc.getfilelist() now has more options, such as to return the absolute path or no path, as well as handling file matching patterns more flexibly.
  8. sc.Failed and sc.Empty, which may be encountered when loading a corrupted pickle file, are now exposed to the user (before they could only be accessed via sc.sc_fileio.Failed).
  9. sc.perturb() can now use either uniform or normal perturbations via the normal argument.

Renamed/removed functions

  1. The function sc.quantile() has been removed. Please use np.quantile() instead (though admittedly, it is extremely unlikely you were using it to begin with).
  2. The function sc.scaleratio() has been renamed sc.normsum(), since it normalizes an array by the sum.

Other updates

  1. Module imports were moved to inside functions, improving Sciris loading time by roughly 30%.
  2. All tests were refactored to be in consistent format, increasing test coverage by roughly 50%.
  3. Continuous integration testing was updated to use GitHub Actions instead of Travis/Tox.

Version 0.17.4 (2020-08-11)

  1. sc.profile() and sc.mprofile() now return the line profiler instance for later use (e.g., to extract additional statistics).
  2. sc.prepr() (also used in sc.prettyobj()) can now support objects with slots instead of dicts.

Version 0.17.3 (2020-07-21)

  1. sc.parallelize() now explicitly deep-copies objects, since on some platforms this copying does not take place as part of the parallelization process.

Version 0.17.2 (2020-07-13)

  1. sc.search() is a new function to find nested attributes/keys within objects or dictionaries.

Version 0.17.1 (2020-07-07)

  1. sc.Blobject has been modified to allow more flexibility with saving (e.g., Path objects).

Version 0.17.0 (2020-04-27)

  1. sc.mprofile() has been added, which does memory profiling just like sc.profile().
  2. sc.progressbar() has been added, which prints a progress bar.
  3. sc.jsonpickle() and sc.jsonunpickle() have been added, wrapping the module of the same name, to convert arbitrary objects to JSON.
  4. sc.jsonify() checks objects for a to_json() method, handling e.g Pandas dataframes, and falls back to sc.jsonpickle() instead of raising an exception for unknown object types.
  5. sc.suggest() now uses jellyfish instead of python-levenshtein for fuzzy string matching.
  6. sc.saveobj() now uses protocol 4 instead of the latest by default, to avoid backwards incompatibility issues caused by using protocol 5 (only compatible with Python 3.8).
  7. sc.odict() and related classes now raise sc.KeyNotFoundError exceptions. These are derived from KeyError, but fix a bug in the string representation to allow multi-line error messages.
  8. Rewrote all tests to be pytest-compatible.

Version 0.16.8 (2020-04-11)

  1. sc.makefilepath() now has a checkexists flag, which will optionally raise an exception if the file does (or doesn't) exist.
  2. sc.sanitizejson() now handles datetime.date and datetime.time.
  3. sc.uuid() and sc.fast_uuid() now work with non-integer inputs, e.g., sc.uuid(n=10e3).
  4. sc.thisdir() now accepts additional arguments, so can be used to form a full path, e.g. sc.thisdir(__file__, 'myfile.txt').
  5. sc.checkmem() has better parsing of objects.
  6. sc.prepr() now lists properties of objects, and has some aesthetic improvements.