✨ v2.7.2 Add bytes, enforce, allow autoincrementing datetime index, improve MSSQL indices.

v2.7.0 – v2.7.2

• Introduce the bytes data type.
  Instance connectors which support binary data (e.g. SQLConnector) may now take advantage of the bytes dtype. Other connectors (e.g. ValkeyConnector) may use meerschaum.utils.dtypes.serialize_bytes() to store binary data as a base64-encoded string.

  import meerschaum as mrsm
  
  pipe = mrsm.Pipe(
      'demo', 'bytes',
      instance='sql:memory',
      dtypes={'blob': 'bytes'},
  )
  pipe.sync([
      {'blob': b'hello, world!'},
  ])
  
  df = pipe.get_data()
  binary_data = df['blob'][0]
  print(binary_data.decode('utf-8'))
  # hello, world!
  
  from meerschaum.utils.dtypes import serialize_bytes, attempt_cast_to_bytes
  df['encoded'] = df['blob'].apply(serialize_bytes)
  df['decoded'] = df['encoded'].apply(attempt_cast_to_bytes)
  print(df)
  #                blob               encoded           decoded
  # 0  b'hello, world!'  aGVsbG8sIHdvcmxkIQ==  b'hello, world!'

• Allow for pipes to use the same column for datetime, primary, and autoincrement=True.
  Pipes may now use the same column as the datetime axis and primary with autoincrement set to True.

  pipe = mrsm.Pipe(
      'demo', 'datetime_primary_key', 'autoincrement',
      instance='sql:local',
      columns={
          'datetime': 'Id',
          'primary': 'Id',
      },
      autoincrement=True,
  )

• Only join on primary when present.
  When the index primary is set, use the column as the primary joining index. This will improve performance when syncing tables with a primary key.

• Add the parameter enforce.
  The parameter enforce (default True) toggles data type enforcement behavior. When enforce is False, incoming data will not be cast to the desired data types. For static datasets where the incoming data is always expected to be of the correct dtypes, then it is recommended to set enforce to False and static to True.

  from decimal import Decimal
  import meerschaum as mrsm
  
  pipe = mrsm.Pipe(
      'demo', 'enforce',
      instance='sql:memory',
      enforce=False,
      static=True,
      autoincrement=True,
      columns={
          'primary': 'Id',
          'datetime': 'Id',
      },
      dtypes={
          'Id': 'int',
          'Amount': 'numeric',
      },
  )
  pipe.sync([
      {'Amount': Decimal('1.11')},
      {'Amount': Decimal('2.22')},
  ]) 
  
  df = pipe.get_data()
  print(df)

• Create the datetime axis as a clustered index for MSSQL, even when a primary index is specififed.
  Specifying a datetime and primary index will create a nonclustered PRIMARY KEY. Specifying the same column as both datetime and primary will create a clustered primary key (tip: this is useful when autoincrement=True).

• Increase the default chunk interval to 43200 minutes.
  New hypertables will use a default chunksize of 30 days (43200 minutes).

• Virtual environment bugfixes.
  Existing virtual environment packages are backed up before re-initializing a virtual environment. This fixes the issue of disappearing dependencies.

• Store numeric as TEXT for SQLite and DuckDB.
  Due to limited precision, numeric columns are now stored as TEXT, then parsed into Decimal objects upon retrieval.

• Show the Webterm by default when changing instances.
  On the Web Console, changing the instance select will make the Webterm visible.

• Improve dtype inference.