New Instance of Custom Indicator in OnBarUpdate Section

[I_Quant]

Hi, I am trying to understand a piece of code in a custom indicator. The guy calls another custom indicator in OnbarUpdate as follows:

protected override void OnBarUpdate()
{
customInd XX = customInd(parm1, parm2, parm3);
XX.Update();
...... uses public XX methods later ... which is fine I understand all that.

What's the point of putting the customInd declaration in the OBU ? Wouldn't it be more efficient to put it into Initialize ? I understand that if I change the parameters real time then this would be reflected in the customInd call, but a boolean test could handle that without having to go through the customInd XX = statement on every tick.

Also, are multiple instances of the customInd created ? Thus adding to the inefficiency of the parent indicator?

thanks in advance

[NinjaTrader_Lance]

The problem with placing this in Initialize is that Initialize() may be called at times when you wouldn't expect.

Depending on what the parm1/2/3 are you may be able to put this in a conditional statement that would only make it be called once. From what I can see here its my understanding this XX was done to visually simplify the code but may not have a performance impact.

[I_Quant]

thanks Lance

so Ninja/C# recognizes that XX is already created and skips the customInd XX = statement, or creates a new instance and throws away the old one?

I think you are right about the visual simplification.

[koganam]

Hi, I am trying to understand a piece of code in a custom indicator. The guy calls another custom indicator in OnbarUpdate as follows:

protected override void OnBarUpdate()
{
customInd XX = customInd(parm1, parm2, parm3);
XX.Update();
...... uses public XX methods later ... which is fine I understand all that.

What's the point of putting the customInd declaration in the OBU ? Wouldn't it be more efficient to put it into Initialize ? I understand that if I change the parameters real time then this would be reflected in the customInd call, but a boolean test could handle that without having to go through the customInd XX = statement on every tick.

Also, are multiple instances of the customInd created ? Thus adding to the inefficiency of the parent indicator?

thanks in advance

You are correct. That is inefficiently instantiating the indicator on each tick.

Much better would be to:

Declare a named instance of the indicator;
Assign that instance, parameters (assuming that they would not change) in OnStartUp();
Run Update() in the getter for the particular properties that you want to access.

If the parameters would change, you can assign the new parameters in OnBarUpdate(), but then you are simply assigning to a named instance, not recreating it on every tick.

[I_Quant]

yup; I can sort out out the parameters separately

many thanks to you both