RE: [amibroker] Creating new watchlists from AFL, AmiBroker Email List Archive

Thanks Dale and Tomasz for your responses.

It appears that you must pre-define all watchlists with the UI before loading the database with the default 0..63 being done for you and any others you have previously manually done with the UI (Symbol menu). It appears the physical position inside the index.txt file within the open database determines the ordinal number when using the CategoryFind function. This means, presumably, that one could write code to manipulate the index.txt file to dynamically create and/or delete watchlists by using FSO with extreme care on handling of deletes as you would impact ordinal values of any “open” watchlist. This would avoid the need to use the UI and would be useful for eventual distribution of a script not requiring the customer to manually enter a bunch of pre-defined watchlist names with the usual typo errors. :^))

From: amibroker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:amibroker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of dingo
Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2007 8:34 AM
To: amibroker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: [amibroker] Creating new watchlists from AFL

Thanks!

From: amibroker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:amibroker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Tomasz Janeczko
Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2007 9:10 AM
To: amibroker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [amibroker] Creating new watchlists from AFL

There was never a function for *creating* watchlists from AFL level, no matter if they are less than 64 or not.

Watchlist are created/deleted from UI.

The only "programmatic" control is using the files inside Watchlist subfolder - add an entry in index.txt file.

Reloading the database is required to re-read the index.txt.

Best regards,
Tomasz Janeczko
amibroker.com

----- Original Message -----

From: dingo

To: amibroker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2007 3:02 PM

Subject: RE: [amibroker] Creating new watchlists from AFL

Yes but how about his question on how to create a watchlist using AFL for > 64 watchlists?

d

From: amibroker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:amibroker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Tomasz Janeczko
Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2007 8:40 AM
To: amibroker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [amibroker] Creating new watchlists from AFL

Hello,

This statement from the AB guide is obsolete. Will be removed.

There is NO limit on number of watchlists and NO limit in Category* functions.

Best regards,
Tomasz Janeczko
amibroker.com

----- Original Message -----

From: RR

To: amibroker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2007 9:36 AM

Subject: RE: [amibroker] Creating new watchlists from AFL

Dingo,

Suppose I want to create a new style watchlist titled “GuppyCountBackLine”.

The CategoryAddSymbol appears to be limited to a range of 0..63 for watchlists. (page 398 of 5.0 user’s guide).

All of the watchlists I want to create fall outside of the default range of 0..63.

The only way I see to create these watchlists is to manually create these with the Symbol menu from the main toolbar.   How do I create these new style watchlists with just AFL? How do I delete the new style watchlists using just AFL?

I do have code for the default case of 1..63. For example:

// ClearWatchList

function ClearWatchlist(wl)

{

       if (Status("stocknum") == 0)

       {

             // remove all existing symbols from the market list

       _TRACE("Removing Tickers from watchlist number " +

       NumToStr(wl, 1.0)+":");

       List = CategoryGetSymbols(categoryWatchlist, wl);

       for( i = 0; ( sym = StrExtract( List, i ) ) != ""; i++ )

       {

             _TRACE(sym);

                    CategoryRemoveSymbol(sym, categoryWatchlist, wl);

             }

       _TRACE("Removing Tickers from Watchlist completed.");

       };

}

This works great for 1..63 but it still appears that manually using SYMBOL..WATCHLIST..New Watchlist must be used to create the new style watchlist.   I do not see how to do the logical equivalent of SYMBOL..WATCHLIST..New Watchlist strictly using AFL for the new style watchlist. For distribution purposes, I would prefer to not have a client have to manually enter potentially hundreds of watchlist names using the Symbol menu.

If you try using the wl = CategoryFind (“GuppyCountBackLine”,categoryWatchlist) you get a -1 return code according to debugview instead of the next available ordinal index number. Obviously, the CategoryFind function is used to retrieve the ordinal number of the watchlist for parameter entry into the other Category….. functions in AFL.

Thanks in advance   :^))

From: amibroker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:amibroker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of dingo
Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2007 9:53 PM
To: amibroker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: [amibroker] Creating new watchlists from AFL

All of the old methods of creating watchlists remain - Check CategoryAddSymbol/ ..removesymbol in the help file and then do a search of this forum on them. There you'll find examples.

d

From: amibroker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:amibroker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of RR
Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2007 10:48 PM
To: amibroker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [amibroker] Creating new watchlists from AFL

I do not see a way to create new watchlists using AFL. Is this do-able? I have heard that you can code a workaround using FSO (file system object) and something about maintaining the index yourself. Unfortunately, I did not see any code posted.   It seems this would be best done by TJ so the implementation of watchlists would not be broken in case additional enhancements were made. Also, the ability to delete a watchlist is needed from AFL so that you do not have to predict ahead of time which watchlists need to be created.