Can an EA automatically start a script?

Can an EA automatically start a script ?

Cheers

Scoobs

I'm assuming you are talking about an MT4 script.

I do not know how to do that. It would not surprise me to hear that someone has figured out a way to do it.

However, why mess with a script at all? Is there a reason why you can't simply copy the script code into the EA and call it internally?

Or just use the Indicator via iCustom in the EA ?

http://docs.mql4.com/indicators/iCustom

That would be an option if he wanted to call an indicator from the EA. But the question concerned a script, not an indicator.

oops, sorry, good point . . .

It can be done. Assign a hot key to the script, then do a send keys to activate it, there is code in codebase for that, I do not have the link.

http://www.metatrader.info/node/160

What I am actually trying todo is when MT4 loads, it loads an EA and a Script automatically. As you you an EA needs ticks but a script does not.

I looked in the help file and it says you can pass a file to terminal to run but it doesnt seem to run MT4 at all if I follow their logic.

Scoobs

Well...automatically starting an EA and script at MT4 startup is a little different situation than simply having an EA call a script.


Yep, that's the way you do it. You must have something wrong with your configuration file and/or your startup command line.

As you know, if the EA was attached to a chart when MT4 closed, it should automatically start when MT4 loads. So, the EA probably does not need to be in your configuration file, although it certainly could be put there.

The startup script would need to be put in your configuration file.

Try a very simple configuration file (called loadtest.txt in this example), like this (change the Expert and Script names accordingly):


These settings will open the EURUSD,M30 chart at startup and load the SpreadEA EA and the spread script automatically.

Your command line would look something like this:

"C:\\MyPrograms\\MetaTrader - Alpari (US)\\terminal.exe" loadtest.txt

Thanks that worked.

Scoobs

The solution that zznbrm provides you (1 year later... sorry to be so late ;-) ) works fine... but if you really want that 'an Expert Advisor automatically start a script' I will recommend you to use "include" and put "shared" functions in a library.

http://docs.mql4.com/basis/preprosessor/include

So you will have 3 files.

mylib.mqh
where you put functions that need to be shared between your EA and your script

yourscript.mq4
which contains #include "mylib.mqh"
and call a function from mylib.mqh

yourea.mq4

which contains #include "mylib.mqh"
and can also call the same function from mylib.mqh

@Kenz987, that's a GREAT idea! I want to do run several scripts on different chart windows from a master script, so I have a similar problem.

The basic question here is how to run a script on a chart programmatically -- from code (in my case a script) invoke another script on a chart.

Kenz987, your suggestion raises another question, though.

A send keys presumably would apply to the chart window that has focus, i.e., "current" chart.

How do I make a chart that's already open which I selected in code (chart ID, ChartFirst, ChartNext) the "current" chart so that I can send it the hotkey value? Or alternatively, how can I direct the hotkey value to a chart I specify in code regardless which one is designated "current" as far as the terminal/GUI are concerned?

My use case is I'm using MT4's own "PeriodConverter" script to set up offline charts in other than the canned timeframes, e.g., 2-hour, 6-hour, 8, 12-hour, 2-minute, 4-minute, etc.

It's time-consuming to do this, especially since sometimes when I wake my machine up from sleep (MT4 still running) the scripts don't always continue to run and I have to launch them by hand individually.

I want to code a single script that launches PeriodConverter on as many charts as I want.

Any suggestions, pointers, links to info on how to do this would be AWESOME! Thanks.