How to publish a product on the Market - section: Automatic program validation

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Hello esteemed community,

I have developed an Expert Advisor (EA) for MT4 which is designed to trade multiple symbols concurrently. I am interested in submitting my EA to the MQL5 Market, but I am aware that the standard strategy tester in MetaTrader 4 may not support multi-symbol backtesting, which might pose a challenge during the validation process.

I am seeking advice on the following points:

  1. How can I navigate the validation process given the multi-symbol nature of my EA?
  2. Is there a way to provide additional instructions or context to the validation team regarding the functionality of my EA?
  3. If automatic validation is not feasible due to the multi-symbol aspect, what alternative steps can I take to have my EA validated and listed on the MQL5 Market?
  4. After registering as a seller, is there a direct channel of communication with the MQL5 support team for addressing such validation concerns?

Any guidance or insight from fellow developers who have encountered similar challenges, or from the MQL5 team, would be highly appreciated. Your advice will go a long way in assisting me to share my EA with the trading community via the MQL5 Market.

Thank you in advance for your assistance and I look forward to your invaluable feedback.

Best regards,
Manuel Mira

 

Question 1 & 3 — First, did you at least try the validation process on your EA to see if it would pass? That should be your fist step to see what possible errors or warnings it might give.

Question 2 — Validation is an automated process. There is no "validation team".

Question 4 — No, there is no specific direct channel for validation concerns. There is either the forum where other users may offer their opinions and supports, and there is the Service Desk, which is mainly for Financial issues.

 
Your topic has been moved to the section: Expert Advisors and Automated Trading
Please consider which section is most appropriate — https://www.mql5.com/en/forum/172166/page6#comment_49114893
 
Fernando Carreiro #:

Question 1 & 3 — First, did you at least try the validation process on your EA to see if it would pass? That should be your fist step to see what possible errors or warnings it might give.

Question 2 — Validation is an automated process. There is no "validation team".

Question 4 — No, there is no specific direct channel for validation concerns. There is either the forum where other users may offer their opinions and supports, and there is the Service Desk, which is mainly for Financial issues.

Thank you for your guidance. As of now, I haven't attempted the validation process since I am in the final stages of coding.

However, having gone through the validation documentation, I have concerns about how my EA might fare given its unique setup.

My EA is developed in MQL4 and features a complex GUI interface initially created for personal use.

Unlike conventional setups, it operates on an internal array encompassing the 28 major symbols, bypassing the use of _Symbol.

I am exploring the possibility of sharing this expert advisor here, and am curious to understand how its unconventional setup might interact with the validation process.

I appreciate your insights on my questions.

Thank you once again for your time and input.

 
Manuel Joaquim Silva De Mira #:

Thank you for your guidance. As of now, I haven't attempted the validation process since I am in the final stages of coding.

However, having gone through the validation documentation, I have concerns about how my EA might fare given its unique setup.

My EA is developed in MQL4 and features a complex GUI interface initially created for personal use.

Unlike conventional setups, it operates on an internal array encompassing the 28 major symbols, bypassing the use of _Symbol.

I am exploring the possibility of sharing this expert advisor here, and am curious to understand how its unconventional setup might interact with the validation process.

I appreciate your insights on my questions.

Thank you once again for your time and input.

It won't pass . You will have to wire the "engine" to trade on a specific symbol when in the tester .

This raises a tsunami of changes that you need to incorporate into your EA if you have small individual "items" that operate by being parameterized from within the GUI.

  • If you do have that then you will have to fashion a mechanism to feed these parameters in the tester and not via the inputs (if the list of parameters is in the triple digits).
  • If you don't have that then you can just have it trade the native symbol when in the tester ,and added bonus they can test a symbol on its own . (but , its MT4 so....)

EDIT : there's also the extreme approach , create a custom tester for your product .

 
Manuel Joaquim Silva De Mira #:

Thank you for your guidance. As of now, I haven't attempted the validation process since I am in the final stages of coding.

However, having gone through the validation documentation, I have concerns about how my EA might fare given its unique setup.

My EA is developed in MQL4 and features a complex GUI interface initially created for personal use.

Unlike conventional setups, it operates on an internal array encompassing the 28 major symbols, bypassing the use of _Symbol.

I am exploring the possibility of sharing this expert advisor here, and am curious to understand how its unconventional setup might interact with the validation process.

I appreciate your insights on my questions.

Thank you once again for your time and input.


There is no real documentation on the validation process, except for the article below. Users just run the process and then follow up on any messages it gives and then try to correct the issues.

Also, don't hard-code the "symbols". Different brokers use different naming schemes. You will have to consider that if you plan to sell it in the market.

Change your EA to allow it to trade on a smaller subset of symbols, including only the current symbol alone, even if the goal is to be multi-symbol trading. That should facilitate the validation process.


Articles

The checks a trading robot must pass before publication in the Market

MetaQuotes, 2016.08.01 09:30

Before any product is published in the Market, it must undergo compulsory preliminary checks in order to ensure a uniform quality standard. This article considers the most frequent errors made by developers in their technical indicators and trading robots. An also shows how to self-test a product before sending it to the Market.
 
Lorentzos Roussos #:

It won't pass . You will have to wire the "engine" to trade on a specific symbol when in the tester .

This raises a tsunami of changes that you need to incorporate into your EA if you have small individual "items" that operate by being parameterized from within the GUI.

  • If you do have that then you will have to fashion a mechanism to feed these parameters in the tester and not via the inputs (if the list of parameters is in the triple digits).
  • If you don't have that then you can just have it trade the native symbol when in the tester ,and added bonus they can test a symbol on its own . (but , its MT4 so....)

EDIT : there's also the extreme approach , create a custom tester for your product .

Thanks for the feedback and the ideas. If I understand correctly, if I build internally a subset of the expert that will run in the tester my code might pass in the validation process.

 
Fernando Carreiro #:


There is no real documentation on the validation process, except for the article below. Users just run the process and then follow up on any messages it gives and then try to correct the issues.

Also, don't hard-code the "symbols". Different brokers use different naming schemes. You will have to consider that if you plan to sell it in the market.

Change your EA to allow it to trade on a smaller subset of symbols, including only the current symbol alone, even if the goal is to be multi-symbol trading. That should facilitate the validation process.


Thanks for your feedback and ideas.

My code include parameters for adjusting suffix and prefix for the symbols (one of my bullet points for the final version is to implement a more user friendly way to deal with that).

I'm going to implement inside the code a tester mode to help the validation process. 

 
Manuel Joaquim Silva De Mira #:

Thanks for the feedback and the ideas. If I understand correctly, if I build internally a subset of the expert that will run in the tester my code might pass in the validation process.

Yes 

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