DLL's and Calls to ActiveX Objects

[pawnbroker]

I would like to share data from eSignal with a Visual Basic program and I am looking at ways to get historic data out of eSignal.

I would use the TurboFeed SDK, but eSignal have a policy of only granting access to this on a restricted basis to institutional and corporate users.

With this restriction, I have considered writting a DLL, as I can pass the OHLC values of all of the bars on a chart via the DLL to my VB application.

I can then use DDE to get the real time quotes and with this combination of a DLL and DDE, I can run my trading system using my VB application.


The problem I have with DLL calls in eSignal is that eSignal has a very unusual requirement to know some rather technical details of the coding inside the DLL, such as the FunctionDefType.

If I create an ActiveX DLL in VB 6, I don't know the Return Type or the FunctionDefType.

If I wanted to use some of the Windows API calls to send messages to my VB application, I would have even less of a chance of knowing these details.

eSignal is the only apllication I know of that requires the end user to know these kind of details. It is normal only to know the names of the functions inside the dll and the data types of the parameters passed via the DLL call.


It would also be very neat in my application if I could call OLE objects using a call along the lines of

var fso = new ActiveXObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject");

which is possible in JScript.

I could then get access to the methods and functions in the ActiveXObject along the lines of

f = fso.OpenTextFile( Ticker + ".csv", 2, true );

(I have used the fso object as a general example and I know the eSignal has its own routines for writing to files).



So I have two problems,

(1) how to know the Return Type and the FunctionDefType, especially with DLL's for which I don't have the C source code and also with ActiveX DLL's.

(2) A feature request to be able to expose ActiveX objects as an alternative to using DLL's.


Pawnbroker

[ostap]

I would join to pawnbroker w/ question -
Is it possible to use ActiveX objects from efs ?

Sergey

[eSignal_JasonK]

ActiveX objects cannot be accessed through EFS at this time.

[macavity_katt]

eSignal to VB/VBA

Will it be possible to access esignal functions (basically '.efs') from other applications?
Is there a suggestion box?

e.g in Pseudo VB

---------------------------------------------
Dim eSignal as Object
Dim myFunction,v1,v2 as Variant

Set eSignal = CreateObject("esignal")
eSignal.Symbol="MSFT"
eSignal.Interval="H"
eSignal.TimeTemplate="NASDAQ"
myFunction=eSignal.Functions("/library/myfunction.efs")

v1=myfunction(0)
v2=myfunction(1)

----------------------------------------------

Better still if events could be visible so that.
I tend to look at signals for a group of stocks/indices and have a requirement for looking at my functions over say 100 symbols
rather than 1-at a time as in charts.
I would put the symbols in Excel and list.
In fact if I could access them on a (user-defined) Quote Window it would be as good, especially if I could set alerts of it.

my 0.02$

-macavity