How to Install Zipline on OpenBSD

In this tutorial, we will be installing Zipline, a Python library for backtesting financial algorithms, on OpenBSD.

Prerequisites

Before you start, you will need the following:

• An OpenBSD installation.
• Python 3.x (already installed on OpenBSD by default).
• pip, Python's package installation tool.

Installing Required Dependencies

Zipline requires various dependencies to function correctly. We need to install them before installing Zipline. To do so, follow these steps:

1. Open your OpenBSD terminal.
2. Run the following command to install the necessary dependencies:

$ sudo pkg_add py3-pip libxml libxslt libffi

Installing Zipline

Once we have installed the required dependencies, let's proceed with installing Zipline.

1. Open your OpenBSD terminal.
2. Run the following command to install Zipline using pip:

$ pip install zipline

This command will download and install Zipline, along with its dependencies.

Testing Zipline

Once the installation is complete, we can test Zipline by running a sample script. To do so, follow these steps:

1. Create a new file and name it example.py.
2. Copy the following code in example.py:

from zipline.api import order, record, symbol

def initialize(context):
    pass

def handle_data(context, data):
    order(symbol('AAPL'), 10)
    record(AAPL=data.current(symbol('AAPL'), 'price'))

3. Run the following command to execute the script:

$ zipline run -f example.py --start 2010-1-1 --end 2012-1-1 -o output.pickle

This command will test Zipline by performing a backtest on the specified date range.

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we learned how to install Zipline on OpenBSD using pip. We also tested Zipline by running a sample script.