Can you get TIME from TOS?

[glay]

I've spent about 3 hours trying to figure out how to get the current time thats displayed in the TOS window. Its currently showing trades firing off at 23:10, 23:11 etc.. My chart says 16:00 becasue I have it set to a 9-1600 Time frame. I can not change this time template but need to get the current tick time that the TOS is showing (23:10). Every thing I've tried just returns the bar's time which is 16:00. How can I get the time value from the TOS data. Thanks!

Geoff

[eSignal_JasonK]

Hello Geoff,

You're most likely using the hour(), minute() and second() functions. Correct? These functions refer to the time stamp (or start time) of the bar relative to the time frame in which they are executing. If you want to get the time stamp of each trade as it occurs in the time and sales window, try specifying the interval of "1T" with those functions.

function main() {
    if (getCurrentBarIndex() < 0) return;

    var vHr = hour(0, inv("1T"));
    if (vHr < 10) vHr = "0" + vHr;
    var vMin = minute(0, inv("1T"));
    if (vMin < 10) vMin = "0" + vMin;
    var vSec = second(0, inv("1T"));
    if (vSec < 10) vSec = "0" + vSec;
    
    var Time = vHr + ":" + vMin + ":" + vSec;
    debugPrintln(Time);

    return;
} 

You could also use the JavaScript Date Object to build the time stamp based on your local PC clock.

[glay]

yippie!

Oh good gracious! Thats what im talking about!! Your a useful guy to have around these parts. Believe it or not I did spend about an hour trying to figure it out before posting. What other magical intervals are there. One quick issue.. Take a look at the screen cap. The TOS seems to be a few ticks ahead of the timer. See the multiple prints of minute 16 and the formula output still says 15. The code is just the code you posted and a debugprint ln used in main(). Its good enough! Just wondering if there is something I can do to get it to sync perfectly. Im using $PLAYBACK right now so that could be the reason its not totally in sync.

[eSignal_JasonK]

Hello Geoff,

There isn't anything we can do via EFS to sync up to a time and sales window while using $PLAYBACK. I don't believe it was intended to be used this way. Please feel free to submit a suggestion to development IDEAS to add this functionality if it is important to you. The code solution I gave you will only be synchronized in real time.

[glay]

No its not too important, was just curious.

Argh. Soon as I tunred computeOnClose back on it stopped working. Basically the study doesn't even run except once per bar in each time fame with this flag on? I need it on to compute values but at the same time I'd still like to get the latest time of the tick data streaming in. Hmmmm..

[eSignal_JasonK]

Hello Geoff,

Originally posted by glay
No its not too important, was just curious.

Argh. Soon as I tunred computeOnClose back on it stopped working. Basically the study doesn't even run except once per bar in each time fame with this flag on?

That is the purpose of setComputeOnClose(). It forces the formula to only execute once per bar when each bar closes.

I need it on to compute values but at the same time I'd still like to get the latest time of the tick data streaming in. Hmmmm..

To have it both ways, what you do is look for BARSTATE_NEWBAR with getBarState(). This occurs on the first trade of each new bar. That is the same instance in which EFS knows that the prior bar just closed. Any calculation that you want to perform once per bar needs to be inside a newbar condition. The calculation then needs to reference the data on bar -1 rather than 0.

This way the formula will continue to execute with each trade so any logic that needs to process on each trade can continue to do so.

[glay]

Ahh didn't think about doing it that way. That way I could calculate my formulas on bar closes but yet still have tick data for time calculations and other sensitive objects... wonderful.. thx

[eSignal_JasonK]

You're most welcome.