grabweb_for_NewsTracker
Download script
This script is designed to automatically retrieve economic news data from an external website and organize it into a structured format that you can use for monitoring market events. Here is a breakdown of how the logic flows:
Data Retrieval Process
The script acts as a web scraper. It connects to a specific URL (the Forex Factory economic calendar) and initiates a connection using standard internet protocols. It "reads" the raw HTML code from that webpage, just as a web browser would do when loading a site. Once the raw data is gathered, it saves a temporary copy of this information as an .htm file on your device to ensure the data has been successfully reached.
Information Extraction (Parsing)
Once the raw text is captured, the script begins the "parsing" phase. It searches through the long strings of web code to find specific pieces of information related to upcoming economic news. It specifically looks for:
- Date and Time: The scheduled moment the news will be released.
- Country/Currency: Which economy the news belongs to (e.g., USD).
- Event Description: What the news actually is (e.g., "Interest Rate Decision").
- Impact Level: How significant the event is expected to be (High, Medium, or Low).
- Economic Indicators: The Actual, Forecast, and Previous figures associated with the event.
Filtering and Customization
The script includes logic that allows you to choose which types of news are relevant to your trading. Based on the settings provided, it can:
- Filter out "Low" impact events if you only want to see major market movers.
- Exclude specific keywords (such as speeches) that might have different volatility characteristics.
- Convert specific currency codes into pairs that match your preferred trading format.
Data Formatting and Output
After the script has identified and filtered the relevant news items, it performs several final steps:
- Time Conversion: It takes the human-readable date and time from the website and converts them into a standardized numerical format that software can easily read.
- CSV Creation: It organizes all this cleaned information into a
.csvfile (an Excel-compatible format). - Final Export: Each row in your final file represents one news event, neatly organized with columns for the description, currency, timestamp, impact level, and any custom parameters you have defined.
In summary, this tool automates the tedious task of manually checking an economic calendar. It fetches the data, sifts through the "noise" of the website's code, filters out the news you don't want to see, and saves a clean, organized list for your use.
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grabweb_for_NewsTracker
/*-----------------------------+
| |
| Shared by www.Aptrafx.com |
| |
+------------------------------*/
//+------------------------------------------------------------------+
//| grabweb.mq4 |
//| Copyright © 2006, Abhi |
//| http://www.megadelfi.com/experts/ |
//| E-mail: grabwebexpert{Q)megadelfi.com |
//| fix my e-mail address before mailing me ;) |
//+------------------------------------------------------------------+
#property copyright "Copyright © 2006, Abhi"
#property link "http://www.megadelfi.com/experts/"
#property show_inputs
extern string sUrl = "http://www.forexfactory.com/index.php?s=&page=calendar&timezoneoffset=g0"; // GMT output for the week
extern string Outputfile = "NewsItems.csv";
extern bool IncludeHigh = true;
extern bool IncludeMedium = true;
extern bool IncludeLow = false;
extern bool IncludeSpeaks = false; // news items with "Speaks" in them have very different characteristics
extern string ConvertUSDto = "USD"; // can change this to a full currency pair such as "GBPUSD"
extern double Parameter2 = 0;
extern double Parameter3 = 0;
extern double Parameter4 = 0;
extern double Parameter5 = 0;
int hSession_IEType;
int hSession_Direct;
int Internet_Open_Type_Preconfig = 0;
int Internet_Open_Type_Direct = 1;
int Internet_Open_Type_Proxy = 3;
int Buffer_LEN = 13;
#import "wininet.dll"
int InternetOpenA(
string sAgent,
int lAccessType,
string sProxyName="",
string sProxyBypass="",
int lFlags=0
);
int InternetOpenUrlA(
int hInternetSession,
string sUrl,
string sHeaders="",
int lHeadersLength=0,
int lFlags=0,
int lContext=0
);
int InternetReadFile(
int hFile,
string sBuffer,
int lNumBytesToRead,
int& lNumberOfBytesRead[]
);
int InternetCloseHandle(
int hInet
);
int hSession(bool Direct)
{
string InternetAgent;
if (hSession_IEType == 0)
{
InternetAgent = "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; Q312461)";
hSession_IEType = InternetOpenA(InternetAgent, Internet_Open_Type_Preconfig, "0", "0", 0);
hSession_Direct = InternetOpenA(InternetAgent, Internet_Open_Type_Direct, "0", "0", 0);
}
if (Direct)
{ return(hSession_Direct); }
else
{ return(hSession_IEType); }
}
int start()
{
// Print("fake start");
}
int init()
{
int hInternet;
string iResult;
int lReturn[]={1};
string sBuffer="x";
string sData, csvoutput;
int handle;
int bytes;
int beginning, finalend,end,i;
string aju, text, newsdate, newstime, country, news, level, actual, forecast, previous;
hInternet = InternetOpenUrlA(hSession(FALSE), sUrl, "0", 0, 67108864, 0);
Print("hInternet: " + hInternet);
iResult = InternetReadFile(hInternet, sBuffer, Buffer_LEN, lReturn);
Print("iResult: " + iResult);
Print("lReturn: " + lReturn[0]);
//iResult = InternetCloseHandle(hInternet);
Print("iResult: " + iResult);
Print("sBuffer: " + sBuffer);
Comment("sBuffer: " + sBuffer);
bytes = lReturn[0];
sData = StringSubstr(sBuffer, 0, lReturn[0]);
//if there's more data then keep reading it into the buffer
while (lReturn[0] != 0)
{
iResult = InternetReadFile(hInternet, sBuffer, Buffer_LEN, lReturn);
if (lReturn[0]==0) break;
bytes = bytes + lReturn[0];
sData = sData + StringSubstr(sBuffer, 0, lReturn[0]);
}
Print("sData: " + sData);
iResult = InternetCloseHandle(hInternet);
Print("iResult: " + iResult);
handle=FileOpen(Day()+ "-"+ Month() +"-"+ Year() +"-"+ "grabweb.htm",FILE_BIN|FILE_READ|FILE_WRITE);
if(handle<1)
{
Print("Can\'t open htm file, the last error is ", GetLastError());
return(false);
}
FileWriteString(handle,sData,StringLen(sData));
FileClose(handle);
Print("bytes: "+bytes);
// htm file is written, let's parse it now and write to csv file
handle=FileOpen(Outputfile,FILE_CSV|FILE_WRITE,",");
if(handle<1)
{
Print("Can\'t open csv file, the last error is ", GetLastError());
return(false);
}
FileWrite(handle,"Description","Currency","DateTime","TimeZone","Level","Parameter2","Parameter3","Parameter4","Parameter5");
beginning = 1;
beginning = StringFind(sData,"<span class=\"smallfont\">Info.</span>",beginning)+36;
finalend = StringFind(sData,"</table>",beginning)-1235;
while (beginning < finalend)
{
for (i=0; i < 8; i++)
{
beginning = StringFind(sData,"<span class=\"smallfont\"",beginning)+23;
beginning = StringFind(sData,">",beginning)+1;
end = StringFind(sData,"</span>",beginning)-0;
if (end != beginning)
{
text = StringSubstr(sData, beginning, end-beginning);
}
else
{
text = "";
}
if (i == 0)
{
if (text != "")
{
newsdate = text;
}
else
{
text = newsdate;
}
}
// date and time conversion here if needed
if (i == 1)
{
text = StringTrimLeft(text);
newstime = StringTrimRight(text);
}
if (i == 2)
{
country = text;
}
if (i == 3)
{
news = text;
beginning = StringFind(sData,"src=\"http://www.forexfactory.com/forexforum/images/misc/",beginning)+59;
end = StringFind(sData,".gif",beginning);
text = StringSubstr(sData,beginning,end-beginning);
level = text;
}
if (i == 4)
{
actual = text;
}
if (i == 5)
{
forecast = text;
}
if (i == 6)
{
previous = text;
}
}
// csvoutput = newsdate + ", " + newstime + ", " + country + ", " + news + ", " +level + ", " + actual + ", " + forecast + ", " + previous;
if (!IncludeHigh && level == "high") continue;
if (!IncludeMedium && level == "med") continue;
if (!IncludeLow && level == "low") continue;
if (!IncludeSpeaks && (StringFind(news,"speaks") != -1 || StringFind(news,"Speaks") != -1) ) continue;
if (country == "USD") country = ConvertUSDto;
int nLevel = 0;
if (level == "high") nLevel = 3;
if (level == "med") nLevel = 2;
if (level == "low") nLevel = 1;
csvoutput = StringConcatenate(news,",",country,",",MakeDateTime(newsdate,newstime),",GMT,",nLevel,",",Parameter2,",",Parameter3,",",Parameter4,",",Parameter5);
Print("newslist: "+ csvoutput);
FileWrite(handle,news,country,MakeDateTime(newsdate,newstime),"GMT",nLevel,Parameter2,Parameter3,Parameter4,Parameter5);
}
FileClose(handle);
return(0);
}
//+------------------------------------------------------------------+
string MakeDateTime(string strDate, string strTime)
{
// converts forexfactory time & date into yyyy.mm.dd hh:mm
int nDateSpacePos = StringFind(strDate," ");
int nDateSlashPos = StringFind(strDate,"/");
string strMonth = StringSubstr(strDate,nDateSpacePos+1,nDateSlashPos-nDateSpacePos-1);
string strDay = StringSubstr(strDate,nDateSlashPos+1);
int nTimeColonPos = StringFind(strTime,":");
string strHour = StringSubstr(strTime,0,nTimeColonPos-1);
string strMinute = StringSubstr(strTime,nTimeColonPos+1,2);
string strAM_PM = StringSubstr(strTime,StringLen(strTime)-2);
int nHour24 = StrToInteger(strHour);
if (strAM_PM == "pm" || strAM_PM == "PM")
{
nHour24 += 12;
}
string strHourPad = "";
if (nHour24 < 10) strHourPad = "0";
return(StringConcatenate(Year(),".",strMonth,".",strDay," ",strHourPad,nHour24,":",strMinute));
}
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