Tianshou/CHANGELOG.md

# Changelog

## Release 1.1.0

### Api Extensions
- Batch received two new methods: `to_dict` and `to_list_of_dicts`. #1063
- `Collector`s can now be closed, and their reset is more granular. #1063
- Trainers can control whether collectors should be reset prior to training. #1063
- Convenience constructor for `CollectStats` called `with_autogenerated_stats`. #1063
- `SamplingConfig` supports `batch_size=None`. #1077
- Batch received new method: `to_numpy_`. #1098
- `to_dict` in Batch supports also non-recursive conversion. #1098
- Batch __eq__ now implemented, semantic equality check of batches is now possible. #1098

### Internal Improvements
- `Collector`s rely less on state, the few stateful things are stored explicitly instead of through a `.data` attribute. #1063
- Introduced a first iteration of a naming convention for vars in `Collector`s. #1063
- Generally improved readability of Collector code and associated tests (still quite some way to go). #1063
- Improved typing for `exploration_noise` and within Collector. #1063
- Better variable names related to model outputs (logits, dist input etc.). #1032
- Improved typing for actors and critics, using Tianshou classes like `Actor`, `ActorProb`, etc., 
instead of just `nn.Module`. #1032
- Added interfaces for most `Actor` and `Critic` classes to enforce the presence of `forward` methods. #1032
- Simplified `PGPolicy` forward by unifying the `dist_fn` interface (see associated breaking change). #1032
- Use `.mode` of distribution instead of relying on knowledge of the distribution type. #1032
- Exception no longer raised on `len` of empty `Batch`. #1084
- tests and examples are covered by `mypy`. #1077
- `NetBase` is more used, stricter typing by making it generic. #1077

### Breaking Changes

- Removed `.data` attribute from `Collector` and its child classes. #1063
- Collectors no longer reset the environment on initialization. Instead, the user might have to call `reset` 
expicitly or pass `reset_before_collect=True` . #1063
- VectorEnvs now return an array of info-dicts on reset instead of a list. #1063
- Fixed `iter(Batch(...)` which now behaves the same way as `Batch(...).__iter__()`. Can be considered a bugfix. #1063
- Changed interface of `dist_fn` in `PGPolicy` and all subclasses to take a single argument in both
continuous and discrete cases. #1032
- `utils.net.common.Recurrent` now receives and returns a `RecurrentStateBatch` instead of a dict. #1077
- The method `to_numpy` in `data.utils.batch.Batch` is not in-place anymore. Instead, a new method `to_numpy_` does the conversion in-place. #1098

### Tests
- Fixed env seeding it test_sac_with_il.py so that the test doesn't fail randomly. #1081


Started after v1.0.0