Bar Corresponding to Given DateTime

[Zeos6]

Hi,

Suppose I pick an arbitrary DateTime, call it myTime, that comes after the time of the first bar painted on the chart, i.e. myTime > ChartControl.FirstTimePainted.

Is there a way to find the bar index and bar time of the first bar on the chart that comes at, or after myTime? Will the xCoordinate approach work on this?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Currently I am using:

                    int startBarIndex = ChartBars.GetBarIdxByTime(ChartControl, startDateTime);
                    startDateTime = ChartBars.GetTimeByBarIdx(ChartControl, startBarIndex);

[NinjaTrader_ChelseaB]

Hello Zeos6,

You are looking for the bar index of the first bar painted?

<ChartBars>.FromIndex <ChartBars>.ToIndex

http://ninjatrader.com/support/helpGuides/nt8/en-us/chartbars_fromindex.htm

http://ninjatrader.com/support/helpGuides/nt8/en-us/chartbars_toindex.htm

Or you are looking for the very first historical bar?

[Zeos6]

Hi ChelseaB,

I am looking for the DateTime of the first bar on the chart that comes AFTER a given DateTime. I specify a DateTime and want to know the first bar that comes after that DateTime. Of course if the given DateTime is before the first bar painted on the chart, the first bar should be returned.

[NinjaTrader_Jesse]

Hello,

Thank you for the reply.

In this situation, you can use the methods you had originally posted to locate the target DateTime. In post 2, the FromIndex and ToIndex are shown, you can utilize these indexes to know what range on the chart is currently being viewed. Using this information, you could supply the index from the visible range to check if the Time of that bar is the target time.

Here is a simple loop that would go over the visible bars:

for (int idx = ChartBars.FromIndex; idx <= ChartBars.ToIndex; idx++)
{

}

You could supply idx to ChartBars.GetTimeByBarIdx to get the time of that bars index and compare that time to your target time.

Once located, you could create a variable to store the values of the next bar, the next bars index would be the idx incremented by 1. Using the idx + 1 would allow you to gather the values from the next bar but you may need to add error handling in case the idx +1 ends up being more than the bars of the chart I.E. the target date is the current bar and no other bars are after this bar.




I look forward to being of further assistance.

[Zeos6]

Hi Jesse,

Thank you for your reply. The information is useful but does not apply in my case as I don't really care whether the bar, or the desired DateTime, is visible or not. The method I outlined earlier actually works quite well. It is a two step approach and I just thought there might be a simpler method.

[gubbar924]

Is this what you're looking for?

DateTime startDateTime = your arbitrary DateTime;

//  allow for any bar that comes after the first painted bar, even the ones off screen
int      startBarIndex = (startDateTime >= ChartControl.FirstTimePainted && startDateTime <= ChartBars.GetTimeByBarIdx(ChartControl, CurrentBar)) ? ChartBars.GetBarIdxByTime(ChartControl, startDateTime) : null;

//  limit the index to only the bars on screen
int      startBarIndex = (startDateTime >= ChartControl.FirstTimePainted && startDateTime <= ChartControl.LastTimePainted) ? ChartBars.GetBarIdxByTime(ChartControl, startDateTime) : null;

if(startBarIndex != null)
{
    //  do something
}

[Zeos6]

Hi gubbar924,

Thanks for your reply. This is essentially what I had posted. I simply omitted the checks when I posted but my code does contain the appropriate checks, as you have shown.