Self-updating code?

My EAs are rarely perfect and generally go through a few revisions. Unfortunately, not every user likes to keep up to date. I'm wondering if there's a way to have an EA automatically update itself?

I was thinking of writing the EA in such a way that it downloads updates from a website and generates a new mqh file. I guess here's a better way to describe what I'm thinking:

There are two main components.
1) The EA.
2) Library (mqh) files.

The EA would have no logic in its code. Instead, it imports functions from a mqh file. As I envision things, every weekend, or every day, or whenever the user wants to update the EA calls a webpage with the full source code of the most recent mqh file. The EA then copies the webpage in 255 character strings, writes the strings to a text file and saves that file as .mqh

The EA then calls the equivalent of the start() function inside the mql file and the mql file goes ahead and does its thing.

I figure this sort of infrastructure might be best for distributing new versions of a neural network, or something along those lines.

Thoughts anyone?

Hi Ron. The first thing come to my mind is that once EA download the new mqh, EA has to re-compile itself in order to make a new ex4.

Would it? As I understand it, the binary of the EA won't change. The only thing that would change is what the library file does.

Aren't those mqh files only read at compile time?

I was gonna suggest writing a dll that retrieves a new version off the interwebs and replaces the ex4 file in the directory.

The problem I think with that method stevegee is the EA calling the dll will inadvertently update itself and that might cause some problems.

That's correct. Also, you'd have to still go through a platform restart to load the new EA.

It's a pithy problem.

i believe sangmane is correct...... you would need to recompile....

the base ea will look at includes and libraries used only at the compile stage..... it pulls out what functions it needs and all those are included in the ex.... all the code....

so if the base ea's mq4 is only 1k in size, after compiling it might be 20 k in size..... or any size..... the binary ea file will change.... it needs to be changed....


if at a later date you change those librairies and includes, the base ea will not know.... only at recompilation will it relook and update any code changes....

you can write a quick ea which uses a library and include..... compile it and send just the ex to someone..... it will work cause it carried all the needed code from the includes with it......h

I looked into this a couple of weeks ago. You'd need to have an external program to restart the terminal for the client. The main reason being that there is no way to programatically re-load the EA. E.g. run "metalang.exe -q experts/EA.mq4" on the commandline while the EA is running, and you'd notice the terminal doesn't automatically reload the active EA. I'm guessing that the MetaTrader Editor sends some kind of a signal to the terminal to signal it to unload/load the EA when you hit Compile, but that is not possible when you compile the mq4 using command-line.

One way I'd suggest is to get your EA to phone home to grab a checksum of the .mq4 and the libraries (similar to how most antivirus handle their LiveUpdate), compare with what the installed versions, replace and recompile them if they differ, then restart the terminal during off-trading hours. I.e. Sat/Sun.

As a half way, and much easier solution, you can have the ea give the user a signal, email or whatever, when an update is available. This may not work for the lazy or extremely busy trader but I think it would help most, those who are unaware.

i did this before

i kept a cvs file on my sever that contained a version number
i used http get to compare the ea version (or ftp, i 4get) , if a update is available
a batch file is run
the batch file will download the new ea overwriting the current ea, using ftp

then the batch file would trigger a new batch file that killed mt4, after mt4 was killed it would then re launch mt4

its been a yr or so, i no longer have the files


im no programmer, i searched google for batch files i could edit
one thing i remember is address must be short, so i had to instal mt4, and all batch files in c directory

i had some batch file in experts folder, and maybe expert /files

the program kill batch file was in c, or c/mt4
i forget

it did work though, i just ended up having no use for it

+1 from me for this solution.

Everything else would probably be more complicated than the EA itself. The EA could place an unobtrusive small text label in with the notification in one of the corners of the chart. This would be unobtrusive and would not interfere with other usage of Comment(). A http-request to obtain the latest version number can probably be done with the windows api alone and without additional libraries.

it wasnt realy dificult, i dont know much about programming exept for mql4, mql4 is the only programming i know

i was able to figure it out though

iv been searching my pc to see if i still had the files, though i cannot find them all, i have found some in some old mt4 instals

i cannot really post all files here, i might get in trouble

ronald you can contact me and il share the ea with you
the ea has alot of functions that read cvs files, checks for updates, copies money management and trades

exept the killing of mt4, and restarting it, i cannot find that, i think it was on my old pc

heres a batch file



this file was used so that some1 could place it in the experts folder and run it

the file would dl the ea, indicators, other batch files, jscripts
to the proper directories, use change directory command to place files in other directories

that way a user can just dl 1 file and run it, everything else was automated




ok, now in the ea, it used http get to dl a cvs file
the ea compared its version number to the number in the file

if theres a diference, the ea then ran a jscript
heres what it looks like


the jscript runs the batch file that will dl the new ea

heres that batch file


i havent found the kill batch files yet


just google something like

bat killtask
or
bat runtask
or endtask

also the jscript wasnt required, i forget why i used it

i converted most everything to exe, maybe that was the reason?

after its all setup, you can convert everything to exe
then just one exe file, or batch file, is all u need to send any1, and that file requires no update

also i must minchine, you can code in the ea to re download all batch or exe files, incase u did update something



also i used the jscript and batch files for downloading screen shots, statements, and ea settings from target pc's
i also sent screenshots and statements and settings to target pc's

i did all that to make a trade copier, it was succsesful, worked fine, i just lost interest in it

you can retrieve and change ea settings remotely

there could be security issues, by some1 installing your files, there trusting you, because its possible to gain access and do about anything to some1 pc using the files, such as copy, or delete directories and files
these files may have full administrative privaleges?
depending on the server (public / private?), some hacker might could replace your files for such reasons

im not really knowledged on the security, just guessing

hope this info helps

Wow!

Thanks a lot Trend Chaser now I have some reading to do.

taskkill /im:<filename> /f

For mt4, my scripts run "taskkill /im:terminal.exe /f"

Its advisable to get your clients to rename their terminals to terminal2.exe for example, in the event that they run multiple terminals, the above taskkill command kills every MT4 terminal they have running.

Hi everybody. I know that this is so old topic, but if I understand what was your purpose, you can just this typ:
Inside old EA, save template of chart to specific place with specific name.
When you download and create new .ex4 file, save it to same folder with same name like that one which acctually running.
When this process is finished, you should try to call ChartApplyTemplate(ChatrId(), "filename");

EA will automatically restart itself

I hope it will be usefull.