I'm thinking about doing a utility in my personal free time to give to people on the forum.
I have to get it approved by Equis since it isn't something someone outside of Equis could do and so on.
So, I'm not making any promises that it will get done.

Having said that, I would really like to know how many people would be interested in the utility I have in mind.

It would be a program that you run after updating your symbol database.
It would allow you to pick a group or securites (All, NYSE, S&P 500, etc ) just like it is in the symbol database.
Then you pick a folder on your hard drive.
It does all the rest of the work for you.
It would create any security file that doesn't already exist in the specified folder or a sub folder of it.

That means you could use this to either create a whole local database or just use it to update an existing one when you get a new database file.

It would create the folders needed. You would just specify a main folder such as C:\MetaStock Data\NASDAQ. It would either look in or create folders as needed to make all the securites in the group you selected.

Is this something that you would be interested in?

This wouldn't change how often symbols in your area are updated.

This would just get rid of the manual work of creating symbols from the symbol database, whether it be a new symbol database or a new group that you want to look at.

Brandon: I can't figure out how to upload a file on this new forum, so nothing is attached to my earlier note. Sorry. Harry

Jose, he didn't say all data was in one file, he is saying what I want MetaStock to do, but won't be able to quite get to.

He said he wants there to be one file that MetaStock looks at and that file knows the location of all the other needed security files.

That would make it so you aren't limited to how many securities you have because you could span multiple folders without knowing it.

With what I intend to do, you won't have to worry as much about where your securities are.

DownLoader lets you add multiple folders to your download at once and you only have to do it once.

With this utility I want to write, it would create all the securities and folders needed based on the group you select from the symbol database.

This utility gets you much closer to what you describe. You wouldn't get individual security selection, for that, you'd have to do it manually in the DownLoader, but you can create a whole group at a time.

No. The only thing I am planning to do with this utility is to create symbols from a symbol database automatically for you.

You select a group and specify a main folder and the utility will look at any existing subfolders and securities and create any securities from the group that don't already exist.

This way everytime you get a new symbol database, whether it is your first or your 100th, it will be easy to get all the symbols from any group. You just select it from a list, it does all the checking and creation.

No more manually selecting the next 6,000 to put in a folder.

Yes, you can do that in DownLoader, but that isn't what I'm talking about doing.

I'm saying this program would keep you up to date. It would add any securities you don't have and the folders needed to keep them in so you don't have to manually create folders or worry about the 6,000 security per folder max.

It would create the folders needed. You would just specify a main folder such as C:\MetaStock Data\NASDAQ. It would either look in or create folders as needed to make all the securites in the group you selected.

Is this something that you would be interested in?

Most definately would be interested. I have come up with a kludge way to do some of what your going to do. Howver it currently involes "printing" the error log from the downloader to a PDF, then copy/paste into an excel sheet that list what symbols have changed, and what are invalid, but I stiull need to find the file format for the SymbolDatabase10.dta file .... Yours would be SO SO much better. One other feature would be to be able to send it a list of securities to remove, say in a .SYM file I would like ot offer any assistance I can, Thanks Dean

OK, but WHY. Its just a list of symbols and associated to exchanges. Oh well, will just have to spend some times with a hex editor to decode it. Just wasn't wanting to go that route.

To me, it would be worth atleast $50 (lifetime updates free) if we can do all that has been discussed.

If you could read the report produced by the downloader, it says which are invalid etc (as I am sure you already know), that would be the most effective. But perhaps that is a proprietary file format we aren't suppoed to know either :)

Dean

Right :) The license agreement! OK, I won't do that then. However, I thought that was related to teh executable. I was unaware that it related to the data.

I just found it. another one of those danm .DTA files I am not supposed to know anything about.

Its COLREPT.DTA in the c:\program files\equis he Downloader\ directory.

Is there "any" way to get the format for this file, say a "developer" kit?

Let me know if I can be of any help in the development of this util

Dean

At first this ticked me off, but after a bit rationalization I can see why. Its to do with some dude gettting the format and writing software that can remove your companies ability to make money, whereas I have been clearly focused on doing this to save ME time.No interest in prodcuing software for others either pay or free or GNU. It would have been JUST for me.

Sweet! If you need a tester, drop me a message (or better an email) and I would be happy to help.

Dean