Buffers for each hour (binary) and an hour buffer from 0-23 - for data collection purposes - indicator for MetaTrader 5

Purpose

Users may collect data for modelling. Time dummies are frequently used in economic modelling. The simple indicator below, which can easily be expanded upon, provides each hour as a binary buffer array vector. A final buffer array vector stores the hour itself.

If data from other indicators is being collected to a CSV, for example, using, e.g. a CopyBuffer function, this indicator allows for dummy columns for the hour being collected as additional data.

• This is a simple code for those who collect data, for e.g. ML purposes, so that you can have a ready made dummy variable (buffers 0 to 23), or hour variable (buffer 24) for use in modelling.

Walking through the code

• Started by declaring buffer number and plot number as 25:

#property indicator_chart_window
#property indicator_buffers 25
#property indicator_plots 25

Buffer Labelling

• Delineated the buffer labels for the data window:

#property indicator_label1  "Hour 00"
#property indicator_label2  "Hour 01"
#property indicator_label3  "Hour 02"
#property indicator_label4  "Hour 03"
#property indicator_label5  "Hour 04"
#property indicator_label6  "Hour 05"
#property indicator_label7  "Hour 06"
#property indicator_label8  "Hour 07"
#property indicator_label9  "Hour 08"
#property indicator_label10 "Hour 09"
#property indicator_label11 "Hour 10"
#property indicator_label12 "Hour 11"
#property indicator_label13 "Hour 12"
#property indicator_label14 "Hour 13"
#property indicator_label15 "Hour 14"
#property indicator_label16 "Hour 15"
#property indicator_label17 "Hour 16"
#property indicator_label18 "Hour 17"
#property indicator_label19 "Hour 18"
#property indicator_label20 "Hour 19"
#property indicator_label21 "Hour 20"
#property indicator_label22 "Hour 21"
#property indicator_label23 "Hour 22"
#property indicator_label24 "Hour 23"
#property indicator_label25 "Hour"

Buffer Declarations

• Proceeded to declare the buffers and also a integer variable for the hour of the day which is calculated later.

double hourBuffer0[];
double hourBuffer1[];
double hourBuffer2[];
double hourBuffer3[];
double hourBuffer4[];
double hourBuffer5[];
double hourBuffer6[];
double hourBuffer7[];
double hourBuffer8[];
double hourBuffer9[];
double hourBuffer10[];
double hourBuffer11[];
double hourBuffer12[];
double hourBuffer13[];
double hourBuffer14[];
double hourBuffer15[];
double hourBuffer16[];
double hourBuffer17[];
double hourBuffer18[];
double hourBuffer19[];
double hourBuffer20[];
double hourBuffer21[];
double hourBuffer22[];
double hourBuffer23[];
double hourBuffer[];

int bar_hour;

Indexing and Plot Drawing

Set index for all buffers as data, and switched off plotting using a loop (trying to do the indexing with a loop presented an error that you cannot pass e.g. hourBuffer[q] through SetIndexBuffer, therefore did this one by one; but looping seems to work for PlotIndexSetInteger, helpfully).

   // Assign buffers to index, hide from chart, show in Data Window
   SetIndexBuffer(0,  hourBuffer0,  INDICATOR_DATA); 
   SetIndexBuffer(1,  hourBuffer1,  INDICATOR_DATA); 
   SetIndexBuffer(2,  hourBuffer2,  INDICATOR_DATA); 
   SetIndexBuffer(3,  hourBuffer3,  INDICATOR_DATA); 
   SetIndexBuffer(4,  hourBuffer4,  INDICATOR_DATA); 
   SetIndexBuffer(5,  hourBuffer5,  INDICATOR_DATA); 
   SetIndexBuffer(6,  hourBuffer6,  INDICATOR_DATA); 
   SetIndexBuffer(7,  hourBuffer7,  INDICATOR_DATA); 
   SetIndexBuffer(8,  hourBuffer8,  INDICATOR_DATA); 
   SetIndexBuffer(9,  hourBuffer9,  INDICATOR_DATA); 
   SetIndexBuffer(10, hourBuffer10, INDICATOR_DATA); 
   SetIndexBuffer(11, hourBuffer11, INDICATOR_DATA); 
   SetIndexBuffer(12, hourBuffer12, INDICATOR_DATA); 
   SetIndexBuffer(13, hourBuffer13, INDICATOR_DATA); 
   SetIndexBuffer(14, hourBuffer14, INDICATOR_DATA); 
   SetIndexBuffer(15, hourBuffer15, INDICATOR_DATA); 
   SetIndexBuffer(16, hourBuffer16, INDICATOR_DATA); 
   SetIndexBuffer(17, hourBuffer17, INDICATOR_DATA); 
   SetIndexBuffer(18, hourBuffer18, INDICATOR_DATA); 
   SetIndexBuffer(19, hourBuffer19, INDICATOR_DATA); 
   SetIndexBuffer(20, hourBuffer20, INDICATOR_DATA); 
   SetIndexBuffer(21, hourBuffer21, INDICATOR_DATA); 
   SetIndexBuffer(22, hourBuffer22, INDICATOR_DATA); 
   SetIndexBuffer(23, hourBuffer23, INDICATOR_DATA);
   SetIndexBuffer(24, hourBuffer, INDICATOR_DATA);

   for(int i = 0; i < 24; i++)
   {
      PlotIndexSetInteger(i, PLOT_DRAW_TYPE, DRAW_NONE);
      PlotIndexSetInteger(i, PLOT_SHOW_DATA, true);
   }

   return(INIT_SUCCEEDED);
}

OnCalculate Function Loops and Programme

• Then we move to the OnCalculate function:
• Here we set all buffers back to zero, and change only the one corresponding to the current hour up to one. There's possibly an efficiency gain to be had here, but for later.

    if(rates_total <= 0)
        return(0);

    // We'll recalc from the first unprocessed bar
    int start = (prev_calculated > 0 ? prev_calculated - 1 : 0);

    for(int i = start; i < rates_total; i++)
    {
       // Calculate hour (0..23) for bar i
       bar_hour = (int)((time[i] % 86400) / 3600);
      

       // 1) Set ALL 24 buffers for bar i to 0
       hourBuffer0[i]  = 0.0;
       hourBuffer1[i]  = 0.0;
       hourBuffer2[i]  = 0.0;
       hourBuffer3[i]  = 0.0;
       hourBuffer4[i]  = 0.0;
       hourBuffer5[i]  = 0.0;
       hourBuffer6[i]  = 0.0;
       hourBuffer7[i]  = 0.0;
       hourBuffer8[i]  = 0.0;
       hourBuffer9[i]  = 0.0;
       hourBuffer10[i] = 0.0;
       hourBuffer11[i] = 0.0;
       hourBuffer12[i] = 0.0;
       hourBuffer13[i] = 0.0;
       hourBuffer14[i] = 0.0;
       hourBuffer15[i] = 0.0;
       hourBuffer16[i] = 0.0;
       hourBuffer17[i] = 0.0;
       hourBuffer18[i] = 0.0;
       hourBuffer19[i] = 0.0;
       hourBuffer20[i] = 0.0;
       hourBuffer21[i] = 0.0;
       hourBuffer22[i] = 0.0;
       hourBuffer23[i] = 0.0;
       hourBuffer[i] = EMPTY_VALUE;

       // 2) Now set ONLY the matching buffer to 1
       switch (bar_hour)
       {
         case 0:  hourBuffer0[i]  = 1.0; hourBuffer[i] = bar_hour; break;
         case 1:  hourBuffer1[i]  = 1.0; hourBuffer[i] = bar_hour; break;
         case 2:  hourBuffer2[i]  = 1.0; hourBuffer[i] = bar_hour; break;
         case 3:  hourBuffer3[i]  = 1.0; hourBuffer[i] = bar_hour; break;
         case 4:  hourBuffer4[i]  = 1.0; hourBuffer[i] = bar_hour; break;
         case 5:  hourBuffer5[i]  = 1.0; hourBuffer[i] = bar_hour; break;
         case 6:  hourBuffer6[i]  = 1.0; hourBuffer[i] = bar_hour; break;
         case 7:  hourBuffer7[i]  = 1.0; hourBuffer[i] = bar_hour; break;
         case 8:  hourBuffer8[i]  = 1.0; hourBuffer[i] = bar_hour; break;
         case 9:  hourBuffer9[i]  = 1.0; hourBuffer[i] = bar_hour; break;
         case 10: hourBuffer10[i] = 1.0; hourBuffer[i] = bar_hour; break;
         case 11: hourBuffer11[i] = 1.0; hourBuffer[i] = bar_hour; break;
         case 12: hourBuffer12[i] = 1.0; hourBuffer[i] = bar_hour; break;
         case 13: hourBuffer13[i] = 1.0; hourBuffer[i] = bar_hour; break;
         case 14: hourBuffer14[i] = 1.0; hourBuffer[i] = bar_hour; break;
         case 15: hourBuffer15[i] = 1.0; hourBuffer[i] = bar_hour; break;
         case 16: hourBuffer16[i] = 1.0; hourBuffer[i] = bar_hour; break;
         case 17: hourBuffer17[i] = 1.0; hourBuffer[i] = bar_hour; break;
         case 18: hourBuffer18[i] = 1.0; hourBuffer[i] = bar_hour; break;
         case 19: hourBuffer19[i] = 1.0; hourBuffer[i] = bar_hour; break;
         case 20: hourBuffer20[i] = 1.0; hourBuffer[i] = bar_hour; break;
         case 21: hourBuffer21[i] = 1.0; hourBuffer[i] = bar_hour; break;
         case 22: hourBuffer22[i] = 1.0; hourBuffer[i] = bar_hour; break;
         case 23: hourBuffer23[i] = 1.0; hourBuffer[i] = bar_hour; break;
       }
       
      string localHourText = HourToText(bar_hour);
      Comment("The hour is: ", localHourText);
    }

    // Return number of bars processed
    return(rates_total);

Function for adding flavour to the comment

• And last but not least, a programme for a comment:
• This is in effect a debugging check but I have left the commenting in.

string HourToText(int bh) {
string TextHour;

switch(bh)
{
   case 0:
      TextHour = "12 am"; // midnight hour in 12-hour format
      break;

   case 1:
      TextHour = "1 am";
      break;

   case 2:
      TextHour = "2 am";
      break;

   case 3:
      TextHour = "3 am";
      break;

   case 4:
      TextHour = "4 am";
      break;

   case 5:
      TextHour = "5 am";
      break;

   case 6:
      TextHour = "6 am";
      break;

   case 7:
      TextHour = "7 am";
      break;

   case 8:
      TextHour = "8 am";
      break;

   case 9:
      TextHour = "9 am";
      break;

   case 10:
      TextHour = "10 am";
      break;

   case 11:
      TextHour = "11 am";
      break;

   case 12:
      TextHour = "12 pm"; // noon hour in 12-hour format
      break;

   case 13:
      TextHour = "1 pm";
      break;

   case 14:
      TextHour = "2 pm";
      break;

   case 15:
      TextHour = "3 pm";
      break;

   case 16:
      TextHour = "4 pm";
      break;

   case 17:
      TextHour = "5 pm";
      break;

   case 18:
      TextHour = "6 pm";
      break;

   case 19:
      TextHour = "7 pm";
      break;

   case 20:
      TextHour = "8 pm";
      break;

   case 21:
      TextHour = "9 pm";
      break;

   case 22:
      TextHour = "10 pm";
      break;

   case 23:
      TextHour = "11 pm";
      break;

   default:
      // Just in case 'bh' is out of range (0..23)
      TextHour = "Unknown";
      break;
}

return TextHour;

Note that this only displays through the data window at present.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year of 2025 everyone.