DailyFx news indicator

Hi all,
I have an indicator that reads the daily csv file for the news.

I have not been able to get it to work because I don't really understand the way it parses the file.

It seems to be reading the html code of the website and that is what I get displayed on the chart. I can only assume they (dailyfx) have changed the link but I am not sure how to modify the link to make it work in the context of the indicator.

Any help here would be very appreciated.

Thanks A

Bump..Anyone?

As far as I can tell, the correct link (for getting news events from the week starting April 25, 2010) is:

http://www.dailyfx.com/calendar/cal.csv?week=2010/0425&sort=dateDesc&timezone=GMT&currency=|&importance=|


The format of the resulting CSV file is like this:

Date,Time,Time Zone,Currency,Description,Importance,Actual,Forecast,Previous
Sun Apr 25,12:00 AM,GMT,USD,USD IMF; World Bank; G-20; G-7 Meet in Washington D.C.,High,,,
Sun Apr 25,12:00 AM,GMT,AUD,AUD Quarterly Wage Agreements (4Q),Low,,,3.5%
Sun Apr 25,11:01 PM,GMT,GBP,GBP Hometrack Housing Survey (MoM) (APR),Low,0.2%,,0.3%
Sun Apr 25,11:01 PM,GMT,GBP,GBP Hometrack Housing Survey (YoY) (APR),Low,1.8%,,1.3%
Sun Apr 25,11:50 PM,GMT,JPY,JPY Corporate Service Price (YoY) (MAR),Low,-1.1%,-1.4%,-1.2% (R+)
Mon Apr 26,2:30 PM,GMT,USD,USD Dallas Fed Manufacturing Activity (APR),Low,21.1%,9.8%,7.2%
Tue Apr 27,1:30 AM,GMT,AUD,AUD Producer Price Index (QoQ) (1Q),Low,1.0%,0.6%,-0.4%


The MQL4 statement

string news = ReadWebPage("http://www.dailyfx.com/calendar/cal.csv?week=" + start_date + "&sort=dateDesc&timezone=GMT&currency=|&importance=|");

should read the contents of the entire cal.csv file into a string variable named news.


How you parse and process this string depends on exactly what you want to appear on your MT4 chart.

That's about as much as I can help, given my current knowledge, and the information that you've provided.

Thanks so much hanover. Can always count on you!

I will do a little more and see how I go. If I cant get it going, I will post back and try to be more detailed.

cheers

Ok.. here are some more specific questions that hopefully you can answer. Not that I have finished with the questions

 

1. Why does MT4 need the DLL inclusion line (#import "wininet.dll") and the code that goes with it, if I have direct access to the network (internet in this case) rather than dialup?
2. How can I make MT4 see ( Fri Apr 30) as a date rather than a string? And along the same vein, how can I make it see (1:55 PM) as time given that the time format is different than MT4's time format?

These probably sound like stupid questions to someone that knows, so apologies in advance if they are.

Something I did figure out while I was trying to get the date format to match for the fileread operation, was the dailyfx calender is a 7 day calendar by default so I don't need to input a date to get the info, which in my case was lucky for me since I haven't solved the problemhttp://cdn.forexfactory.com/images/icons/icon6.gif

The answers to your questions are in the MQL4 on-line help (e.g. in MetaEditor, place cursor over the word "#import" and press the F1 key). To save time I've pasted the same help text below.

1. Why does MT4 need the DLL inclusion line (#import "wininet.dll") and the code that goes with it, if I have direct access to the network (internet in this case) rather than dialup?

The type of external functions defined in another component of a program must be explicitly described. The absence of such a definition may result in errors during the compilation, linkage, or execution of the program. While describing an external object, the keyword of #import must be used with the reference to the module.

#import "user32.dll"
int MessageBoxA(int hWnd ,string szText,string szCaption,int nType);
int SendMessageA(int hWnd,int Msg,int wParam,int lParam);
#import "lib.ex4"
double round(double value);
#import

Import can be used to easily describe functions called from external DLLs or compiled EX4 libraries.

Pointers to variables can be passed to imported dll functions. Data of the string type are passed as a pointer to the corresponding memory block (one should keep in mind that internal representation of string data consists of two parts: the memory block length and the memory block pointer). If there is a need to pass data of the int or double type, then the one-dimensional array of the corresponding type should be passed by reference as a parameter.

2. How can I make MT4 see ( Fri Apr 30) as a date rather than a string? And along the same vein, how can I make it see (1:55 PM) as time given that the time format is different than MT4's time format?

datetime StrToTime( string value)
Converts string in the format "yyyy.mm.dd hh:mi" to datetime type (the amount of seconds that have passed since 1 Jan., 1970).

Parameters:
value - String value of date/time format as "yyyy.mm.dd hh:mi".

Sample:
datetime var1;
var1=StrToTime("2003.8.12 17:35");
var1=StrToTime("17:35"); // returns the current date with the given time
var1=StrToTime("2003.8.12"); // returns the date with the midnight time of "00:00"

I will send you a PM shortly, with more information.

ok... but I am getting errors with the PM part of the time and although I can trim the PM out it does not address the 12 to 24hr clock conversion. I did read the help manual but it does not seem to address those specifics or is way over my head.

And "datetime StrToTime( string value)" seems to only convert the predefined format as it is written in manual and not variations that is written in the CSV " of "Fri Apr 30" . That is one value and is not comma separated or else I could split it up to read it.

I must be missing something crucial. I will track down some code and see if I can find an example that might work.

Sorry Mate, seems we were both posting at the same time and the posts overlapped.

Did you Ever Get your Indicator To Work

I have an own library that reads news from DailyFX. Since they closed the download of csv (i think 2 years ago) this approach will not work anymore. You have to parse the underlying html response by yourself (and be aware that you have to change te code every 6 months when dailyfx changes their css or other stuff.