Help Needed: Hooking an Indicator to a CSV File

[Forex Trader]

Is it possible to write an indicator that obtains data from an external text file?

Suppose we have a text file formatted like this:

--

Date1(Tab)Value1(LF)

Date2(Tab)Value2(LF)

...

DateN(Tab)ValueN(EOF)

--

where (Tab) could be actually Tab, or "," or ";" or something else.

How do you make reference to an external file in the source code of your indicator, and how do you make it read the data structured as shown above to show it as a line or bar chart?

Thank you!

[Bradford Hall]

^bump

Did you ever figure it out?  I am trying to do the same thing!

[Marco vd Heijden]

Bradford Hall:
^bump

Did you ever figure it out?  I am trying to do the same thing!

Bradford Hall:
What I want to create seems very simple in concept, but I am having a difficult time figuring it out looking at tutorials online.

I want to create a Leading indicator that would plot a line for different parameters.

How should I arrange my data to accomplish this?  I have the Year, Month, Weekday, Day#, and other strings, parameters I want to plot.

YEAR	MONTH	Weekday	DAY#	Variablexyz etc.

Any help would be appreciated.  Thank you.

//+------------------------------------------------------------------+
//|                                                  Data_to_CSV.mq4 |
//|                                                                  |
//|                                                                  |
//+------------------------------------------------------------------+
#property copyright "Inovance"
#property link      "https://www.inovancetech.com/"
#property description "Save OHLCV data to a csv file."
#property version   "1.00"
#property strict
#property indicator_chart_window

   //Filename
input string   FileName = "PriceData.csv";



//+------------------------------------------------------------------+
//| Initialization function                                          |
//+------------------------------------------------------------------+
int OnInit()
  {
  
   return(INIT_SUCCEEDED);
  }
//+------------------------------------------------------------------+
//| Custom indicator iteration function                              |
//+------------------------------------------------------------------+
int start()
  {
      //Define variables
      int limit,i;
      int counted_bars = IndicatorCounted();
      
      //Make sure on most recent bar
      if(counted_bars>0) counted_bars--;
  
      //Set limit
      limit = Bars - counted_bars - 1;
      
      
      //Main loop
      for(i = limit - 1; i>=0; i--)
         {
          
            //Create and Open file
            int handle=FileOpen(FileName,FILE_CSV|FILE_READ|FILE_WRITE,",");
            
            //Name column headers
            FileWrite(handle,"Open Timestamp","Open","High","Low","Close","Volume");
            
            //Go to end of file
            FileSeek(handle,0,SEEK_END);
            
            //Record data
            FileWrite(handle,Time[i],Open[i],High[i],Low[i],Close[i],Volume[i]);
            
            //Close file
            FileClose(handle);    
            
         }
        
      return(0);
  }

Some example.

https://www.mql5.com/en/code/12699

In reverse use FileRead{datatype} () function.

https://www.mql5.com/en/docs/files/filereaddouble

https://www.mql5.com/en/docs/files/filereaddatetime

etc.

https://www.mql5.com/en/docs/files

[Bradford Hall]

Marco vd Heijden:

Some example.

https://www.mql5.com/en/code/12699

In reverse use FileRead{datatype} () function.

https://www.mql5.com/en/docs/files/filereaddouble

https://www.mql5.com/en/docs/files/filereaddatetime

etc.

https://www.mql5.com/en/docs/files

Thank you for the response.  Yes it needs to be in reverse.  It needs to read the csv file, and plot the variable values for the corresponding date/time.   I'll see if I can't muddle through it and get a simple daily test to work.  If it works, when I attach it I should have a moving average in the window with the values for that specific date/time correct?