Configuration

Starting directory

Starting directory is used to turn relative paths into absolute paths. In many places you’ll be required to specify a path which should be relative to the starting directory. To set up starting directory one needs to either: - call set_starting_dir_abs_path("C:\abs\path\to\starting\directory") - or set QF_STARTING_DIRECTORY environment variable and put as value path to the project. - For example the path might look like this: C:\Users\user_name\workspace\qf-lib

Advanced configuration - Settings files

Many components from qf-lib require the Settings object as a dependency. To create it one needs to put in their Python code:

from qf_lib.settings import Settings


settings_path = ...
secret_settings_path = ...
settings = Settings(settings_path, secret_settings_path)

where settings_path is an absolute path of your file containing settings (JSON, described later) used by the application and the secret_settings_path which is complementary to the settings file but contains secret data (e.g. passwords) and thus mustn’t be added to the CVS. When Settings object is created, it: - loads settings defined in the settings.json file - loads settings defined in the secret_settings.json file (if the file exists) - loads settings defined in the QUANTFIN_SECRET environment variable (if the secret_settings.json file doesn’t exist) - merges both loaded sets of settings together.

Sample content of the settings.json:

{
  "some_setting": "value of that setting",
  "another_setting": "value of another setting",
  "some_connection_settings": {
    "username": "john.smith"
  }
}

Sample content of the secret_settings.json:

{
  "some_connection_settings": {
    "password": "my_secret_pass"
  }
}

QF-Lib used settings

You may define your own settings and later on have them loaded into Settings object. However there are some, which are required for some QF-Lib components to work correctly.

Sample settings can be found in demo configuration \qf-lib\demo_scripts\demo_configuration\config_files\demo_settings.json
Sample secret settings can be found in demo configuration \qf-lib\demo_scripts\demo_configuration\config_files\demo_secret_settings.json

NOTICE: all paths used in the settings should be relative to the starting directory. (which can be set either by using set_starting_dir_abs_path(path) function or by setting QF_STARTING_DIRECTORY environment variable)

Below you’ll find a list of examples that can be put into settings

company_name and logo_path (optional)

settings.json:

"company_name": "Sample Org Name",
"logo_path": "path/to/logo.jpg"

Used by components producing tearsheets (in a form of PDFs). The company name and a logo is put in the header of those tearsheets.

document_css_directory (optional)

settings.json:

"document_css_directory": "input/elements_css"

Setting used by the PDFExporter component to style the elements put in PDFs (e.g. tables, paragraphs, etc.). If document_css_directory is not specified then the default style will be applied.

bloomberg (optional)

settings.json:

"bloomberg": {
  "host": "localhost",
  "port": 8194
}

Used by the BloombergDataProvider. To have this component running, first you need to have a Bloomberg subscription. Then you need to have the BLPAPI running somewhere. Then you need to specify where the API is running by specifying its host and port.

output_directory

settings.json:

"output_directory": "output"

A relative path to the directory into which different components will put their output (e.g. generated tearsheets).