NextGen Travel (Public Services and Procurement Canada)

This repo is an experiment to test Rules as Code using the OpenFisca platform.

We took a small portion of the National Joint Council Travel Directive and attempted to represent it as boolean logic.

This API can be used to calculate whether a persons Car Rental scenario is in line with the directive. Please note that this is an interpretation of the directive and not an offical tool.

The rulesascode-client repo contains a front end to help visualise how the API works.

Setting-up a Virtual Environment with Pew

In order to limit dependencies conflicts, we recommend to use a virtual environment (abbreviated as “virtualenv”) with a virtualenv manager such as pew.

• A virtualenv is a project specific environment created to suit the needs of the project you are working on.
• A virtualenv manager such as pew lets you easily create, remove and toggle between several virtualenvs.

To install pew, launch a terminal on your computer and follow these instructions:

pip install --upgrade pip
pip install pew  # if asked, answer "Y" to the question about modifying your shell config file.
pew new openfisca --python=python3.7  # create a new virtualenv called “openfisca”

The virtualenv you just created will be automatically activated. This means you will operate in the virtualenv immediately. You should see a prompt resembling this:

Installing setuptools, pip, wheel...done.
Launching subshell in virtual environment. Type 'exit' or 'Ctrl+D' to return.

You can re-activate that virtualenv at any time with pew workon openfisca.

🎉 You are now ready to install this OpenFisca Country Package!

Two install procedures are available. Pick procedure A or B below depending on how you plan to use this Country Package.

A. Minimal Installation (Pip Install)

Follow this installation if you wish to:

• run calculations on a large population;
• create tax & benefits simulations;
• write an extension to this legislation (e.g. city specific tax & benefits);
• serve your Country Package with the OpenFisca Web API.

For more advanced uses, head to the Advanced Installation.

Install this Country Package with Pip Install

Inside your virtualenv, check the prerequisites:

python --version  # should print "Python 2.7.xx".
#if not, make sure you pass the python version as an argument when creating your virtualenv

pip --version  # should print at least 9.0.
#if not, run "pip install --upgrade pip"

Install the Country Package:

pip install openfisca_canada

🎉 This OpenFisca Country Package is now installed and ready!

Next Steps

• To learn how to use OpenFisca, follow our tutorials.
• To serve this Country Package, serve the OpenFisca web API.

Depending on what you want to do with OpenFisca, you may want to install yet other packages in your virtualenv:

• To install extensions or write on top of this Country Package, head to the Extensions documentation.
• To plot simulation results, try matplotlib.
• To manage data, check out pandas.

B. Advanced Installation (Git Clone)

Follow this tutorial if you wish to:

• create or change this Country Package's legislation;
• contribute to the source code.

Clone this Country Package with Git

First of all, make sure Git is installed on your machine.

Set your working directory to the location where you want this OpenFisca Country Package cloned.

Inside your virtualenv, check the prerequisites:

python --version  # should print "Python 2.7.xx".
#if not, make sure you pass the python version as an argument when creating your virtualenv

pip --version  # should print at least 9.0.
#if not, run "pip install --upgrade pip"

Clone this Country Package on your machine:

git clone https://github.com/openfisca/openfisca-canada.git
cd openfisca-canada
pip install --editable .[dev]

You can make sure that everything is working by running the provided tests with make test.

Learn more about tests

🎉 This OpenFisca Country Package is now installed and ready!

Next Steps

• To write new legislation, read the Coding the legislation section to know how to write legislation.
• To contribute to the code, read our Contribution Guidebook.

Serve this Country Package with the OpenFisca Web API

If you are considering building a web application, you can use the packaged OpenFisca Web API with your Country Package.

To serve the Openfisca Web API locally, run:

openfisca serve --port 5000

To read more about the openfisca serve command, check out its documentation.

You can make sure that your instance of the API is working by requesting:

curl "http://localhost:5000/spec"

This endpoint returns the Open API specification of your API.

🎉 This OpenFisca Country Package is now served by the OpenFisca Web API! To learn more, go to the OpenFisca Web API documentation