Data Test - Starter Project

Prerequisites

Java JDK 8

Go to https://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/jdk8-downloads-2133151.html and under the section "Java SE Development Kit 8u191" (the final digits may vary at the time you're reading this) click the Accept License Agreement radio button and download the version appropriate to your operating system.

Python 3.6.* or later.

See installation instructions at: https://www.python.org/downloads/

Check you have python3 installed:

python3 --version

Preferably an IDE such as Pycharm Community Edition

https://www.jetbrains.com/pycharm/download/

Dependencies and data

Creating a virtual environment

Ensure your pip (package manager) is up to date:

pip3 install --upgrade pip

To check your pip version run:

pip3 --version

Create the virtual environment in the root of the cloned project:

python3 -m venv .venv

Activating the newly created virtual environment

You always want your virtual environment to be active when working on this project.

source ./.venv/bin/activate

Installing Python requirements

This will install some of the packages you might find useful:

pip3 install -r ./requirements.txt

Running tests to ensure everything is working correctly

pytest ./tests

Generating the data

A data generator is included as part of the project in ./input_data_generator/main_data_generator.py This allows you to generate a configurable number of months of data. Although the technical test specification mentions 6 months of data, it's best to generate less than that initially to help improve the debugging process.

To run the data generator use:

python ./input_data_generator/main_data_generator.py

This should produce customers, products and transaction data under ./input_data/starter

Getting started

The skeleton of a possible solution is provided in ./solution/solution_start.py You do not have to use this code if you want to approach the problem in a different way.