MetaTrader Global » MQL4

MetaTrader 5 – New Opportunities with MetaTrader 5

MetaTrader Global — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 10:44:07 +0000

A little bit of history

As little as 5 years ago, the MetaTrader 4 terminal was officially presented to the traders, written completely from scratch and intending to replace the existing, and already popular, third generation terminal of MetaQuotes Software Corp. MetaTrader 4 quickly gained popularity among traders, and as a consequence, in the following years, hundreds of brokers began to provide their services on the MetaTrader 4 platform.

Despite this success, 3 years ago developers decided to create an informatory – trading platform of a new generation, and in November of 2009 the public testing of MetaTrader 5 had begun. We all tend to take a strong liking to the known and the familiar and take a cautious approach to changes. Traders are no exception to this behavior. Therefore we decided to help, all who desired, to understand the differences and advantages of the MetaTrader 5 platform in comparison to the well-known MetaTrader 4.

New markets and instruments

From the beginning, MetaTrader was intended to be a convenient and user friendly platform for trading on the Forex market. Today, it is difficult to even imagine that many years ago, in almost all other terminals, trade was conducted on demand, it was not possible to create your own technical indicators and trading robots, and opportunities for technical analysis were implemented more in words than actual actions. And so, traders who sold through other financial markets began to express a desire to sell through MetaTrader.

View full article at http://www.mql5.com/en/articles/84

MetaTrader 5 – Migrating from MQL4 to MQL5

MetaTrader Global — Mon, 17 May 2010 23:10:48 +0000

This article is a quick guide to MQL4 language functions, it will help you to migrate your programs from MQL4 to MQL5. For each MQL4 function (except trading functions) the description and MQL5 implementation are presented, it allows you to reduce the conversion time significantly. For convenience, the MQL4 functions are divided into groups, similar to MQL4 Reference.

Introduction

Many developers have accumulated a lot of indicators and trading strategies written in MQL4. To use them in Metatrader 5, they should be converted to MQL5. It’s not so easy to rewrite all programs in MQL5. It would be much easier to convert them, if there were a translation-reference, and better with examples.

In this article I would like to suggest my version of a guide to migrate from MQL4 to MQL5.

Topics Covered

Chart Periods
Declaring Contants
Predefined Variables
Account Information
Array Functions
Checkup
Client Terminal
Common Functions
Conversion Functions
Custom Indicators
Date and Time Functions
File Functions
Global Variables
Mathematical Functions
Object Functions
String Functions
Technical Indicators
Timeseries Access
Chart Operations

Read the full article at http://www.mql5.com/en/articles/81

MetaTrader Programming Overview

MetaTrader Global — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 06:48:50 +0000

MetaTrader is one of the most popular trading platform among presently existing. Wide configuration and control possibilities for brokers and a robust programming tool, the integrated MQL language for traders make the system handy and versatile in use.

The MQL integrated programming language is a C++ like language. Its concepts and syntax are familiar which allows the majority of programmers to conserve time resources during the learning phase. It is enough to grasp syntax and basic idea of the MetaTrader trading platform to start programming in MQL language.

By means of MQL language it is possible to create several program types:

Expert Advisors. The main goal for Expert Advisors is to carry trading operations in automatic mode following prescribed rules and by that freeing trader from the routine work. Expert Advisors can use in its work Custom Indicators and Libraries. Back Test Strategy Tester allows you to conduct strategy profitability testing on historical data which shortens development terms dramatically.

Custom Indicators. Classical indicators posses visual constituent as well as internal buffers to be able to be used in Expert Advisors. Non standard approaches are also possible though such as object usage, audio announcement systems and others.

Scripts. In distinction from Custom Indicators and Expert Advisors, Scripts allow you to execute some code once. This is useful for semiautomatic operation execution by trader. For example, open order with definite parameters or set Stop Loss Level for a new value. For each of new scripts it is possible to assign hot key, which makes script usage process fast and practical. Custom Indicators and Expert Advisors execute code only on price change on current currency pair.

Libraries. Repeatedly used functions and code pieces can be grouped into libraries. It is possible to use libraries written in MQL or in any other language. Using interface for linking external libraries provides traders with unlimited possibilities in their ideas implementation.

MQL4 for Dummies

MetaTrader Global — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 22:25:13 +0000

Development of applications for the MetaTrader 4 Client Terminal requires the knowledge of MQL4. This programming language MetaQuotes Language 4 is a fourth-generation language that has also been developed by MetaQuotes Software Corp. from their own many years experience. MQL4 is the first programming language to consider all niceties of trading on financial markets.

This present textbook will help you create your own Expert Advisors, scripts and indicators and incarnate in them your ideas – your trading algorithms. The textbook is intended for a large number of readers without experience in programming that want to learn how to develop automated trading applications for MetaTrader 4 Client Terminal. The textbook is designed in such a method that to make learning MQL4 as convenient and consequent as possible.

Download the MQL4 for Dummies textbook

Changing the External Parameters of MQL4 Programs without Restarting

MetaTrader Global — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 19:30:18 +0000

Anybody who has ever launched an EA or an indicator for execution, faced the possibility to preliminarily set up external parameters that often underlay the success of the program. There is a possibility to change parameters during the program operation. But how can that be done without initialization? In some cases, this may affect managing the previously opened orders. In this article, we try to solve this problem as flexibly as possible.

Problem Statement

We will consider this problem for Expert Advisors rather than for indicators. For indicators, this problem is not so acute, although the methods are universal and you can apply them to any programs.

In the classical EA writing, the context must be created at every tick. There can be two kinds of contexts – the context of status and trading context. The context of status contains the current states of indicators and other elements underlying the decision making on opening/closing/modifying orders. Trading context contains the information about open orders, their statuses and quantities. After trading context has been analyzed, traders make decisions about what to do with their orders. Contexts are divided by types conditionally. This classification has been introduced for convenience.

To read the full article, please visit: http://articles.mql4.com/724

Using Neural Networks In MetaTrader

MetaTrader Global — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 16:42:32 +0000

Many of you probably have considered the possibility of using neural networks in your EA. This subject was very hot specially after 2007 Automated Trading Championship and the spectacular winning by Better with his system based on neural networks. Many internet forums were flooded with topics related to neural networks and Forex trading. Unfortunately writing native MQL4 implementation of NN is not easy. It requires some programming skills and the result would not be very efficient specially if you’d like to test your final result in tester on large number of data.

In this article I’ll show you how you can use the freely available (under LGPL), renowned Fast Artificial Neural Network Library (FANN) in your MQL4 code while avoiding certain obstacles and limitations. Further I assume that reader is familiar with Artificial Neural Networks (ann) and terminology related to this subject so I’ll concentrate on practical aspects of using particular implementation of ann in MQL4 language.

To read the full article, please visit: http://articles.mql4.com/777

Decorating Indicators – MetaTrader 4

MetaTrader Global — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 20:32:57 +0000

Introduction

What is an indicator? It is a tool intended for displaying a certain type of data. Usually it is information about the price series properties, exactly this type of indicators will be considered further.

Each indicator also has its own properties and characteristics: for example, the range of values, the overbuying/overselling zones, the line crossing, tops and bottoms… They are numerous and can be successively used together with the main indicator values. However, such properties are not always vivid. The reasons can be different – small size of the indicator window, lower concentration, etc.

The purpose of this article is to help you to improve the descriptive and informational value of indicators, as well as partial automation and facilitation of the code implementation process. I hope the code below will cause no difficulties both for professional developers and beginners.

The article is intended for those who have at least the starting level of MQL4 knowledge and can implement simple ideas and algorithms in a code, as well as knows about the structure of code storage in the terminal and can use the libraries (experts/libraries) and header files (experts/include).

View the full article at http://articles.mql4.com/838

MetaTrader Tips – Expert Advisor Installation

MetaTrader Global — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 02:09:37 +0000

MetaTrader Expert Advisors file should have the file extension of .ex4 (compiled code) or .mq4 (sourse code). First it is necessary to copy this file to the folder Experts of the MetaTrader working directory (usually C:\Program Files\MetaTrader Broker Name or MetaTrader).

The second step is to restart MetaTrader. After the restart the expert should be added to the list of experts in the Navigator window. It necessary to stress that the colored icon corresponds to mq4 file. If you have an ex4 file only, an icon in the window Navigator will be grey. The same grey color may mean that the errors in a source code appeared.

In order to check errors in the EA, you can press F4, the editor of language MQL4 , and then it is necessary to load the source code of expert into the editor. Press F5 in order to compile the expert advisor. In case of success, the sentence ’0 errors’ will appear in conclusion window. Warnings are not errors and their presence does not hinder the successful compiling.

Recipes for Neuronets

MetaTrader Global — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 03:51:40 +0000

Not so long ago – at the dawn of technical analysis when by far not all traders had computers – people appeared that tried to predict future prices using formulas and regularities invented by them. They were often called charlatans. Time went on, methods of information processing became more complicated, and now there can hardly be traders indifferent to technical analysis. Any beginning trader can easily utilize charts, various indicators, search for regularities.

The number of forex-traders grows daily. Together with that their requirements for market analyzing methods grow. One of such “relatively” new methods is the use of theoretically fuzzy logics and neural networks. We see that topics devoted to these questions are being actively discussed on various thematic forums. They do exist, and will go on existing. A human that entered the market will hardly ever leave it. While it is the challenge to one’s intelligence, brain and strength of will. That is why a trader never ceases to study something new and to use various approaches in practice.

In this article we will analyze basics of neuronet creation, will learn about the notion of Kohonen neural net and will talk a little about methods of trading optimization. This article is first of all intended for traders who are only at their beginning in studying neuronets and principles of information processing.

To read the full article, please visit: http://articles.mql4.com/783

Working with Doubles in MQL4

MetaTrader Global — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:02:40 +0000

The MQL programming opens new opportunities for the automated trading, many people all over the world already have appreciated it.

When we are writing an Expert Advisor for trading, we must be sure that it will work correctly.

Many newbies often have some questions when the results of some mathematical calculations differ from those expected. The program is compiled and can work, but not as it should. They are checking the code again and again, finding the new “mistakes” in language, in implementation, in functions, etc.

In the most of cases, the careful analysis shows that the language and compiler work correctly, but code has a small error, and it can take a long time to find and correct it.

In this note we will consider a typical programming errors, that occurs while working with double numbers in MQL4 programs.

To read the full article, please visit: http://articles.mql4.com/866

MQL4 Tutorial – Introductory Course

MetaTrader Global — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:18:30 +0000

Hundreds of thousands of traders worldwide have already judged the MetaTrader 4 Client Terminal on its merits. The use of its embedded programming language, MQL4, lifts traders to a new level of trading – to automated trading. Now, a trader can implement his or her ideas as an application program – write a custom indicator, a script to perform single operations, or create an Expert Advisor – an automated trading system (trading robot).

Download the MQL4 for Dummies textbook

Development of applications for MetaTrader 4 Client Terminal requires the knowledge of MQL4. Programming language MetaQuotes Language 4 is a fourth-generation language that has also been developed by MetaQuotes Software Corp. from their own many years experience. MQL4 is the first programming language to consider all niceties of trading on financial markets.

Download the MQL4 for Dummies textbook

Rewrite MQL4 to MQL5 Script

MetaTrader Global — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 21:09:09 +0000

Here is a script which converts MQL4 code to MQL5 code was developed by Keiji and Circlesquares on the MQL4 forum.

First, download the following files and place them in your Metatrader 4 / experts / include folder

- mt4accountinfo.mqh
- mt4string.mqh
- mt4datetime.mqh
- mt4objects_1.mqh
- mt4timeseries_2.mqh

Now, download the latest version of the rewrite script and place it in your Metatrader 4 / experts / scripts folder:

- mq4to5rewrite_sample_v4_2.mq4

After that you will need to place a mql4 indicator, script or ea which you want to convert to MQL 5 in your Metatrader 4 / experts / files folder. Now open Metatrader 4 and run the script. As you can see you must first provide the name (without extension) of your mq4 file and select if it is an indicator (0), EA (2) or script (3) file.

In my case i’m rewritting a MQL4 indicator named ang_DCT:

Now hit the “OK” button and if everything is done, the following message will appear:

After that go to your Metatrader 4 / experts / files folder and you will find the converted mq5 file there:

Now open this file with Metaeditor 5 in compile it:

Try to fix the errors with the MQL4 to MQL5 Porting Table and the last version of the translated MQL5 user guide.

Source

Custom Indicators in MQL5

MetaTrader Global — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 20:48:54 +0000

Finally we’ve got an opportunity to try the new trade terminal – MetaTrader 5. No doubt, it is noteworthy and has many new features as compared to its predecessor. The important advantages of this platform among others are:

Essentially modified language allowing now to use the object-oriented programming, still allowing to use the rich advantages of structural programming.
The code execution speed, which now is much faster than in MetaTrader 4.
Essential increase of possibilities for displaying the necessary information.

I will not list all of the new possibilities and features of the new terminal and language. They are numerous, and some novelties are worth the discussion in a separate article. Also there is no code here, written with object-oriented programming, it is a too serous topic to be simply mentioned in a context as additional advantages for developers.

In this article we will consider indicators, their structure, drawing, types and their programming details, comparing to MQL4.

There is nothing complicated in this article, moreover, anything of the considered here can be checked directly in the terminal using the attached files.

I hope that this article will be useful both for beginners and experienced developers, maybe some of them will find something new here.

Click here for the full article – http://articles.mql4.com/865

What Is Automated Trading

MetaTrader Global — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 02:12:03 +0000

Modern technologies allow us not only to trade in financial markets using personal computers, but we can fully automate a trading system now. Using a computer program you can relieve yourself from the routine of analyzing financial markets and performing trades.

Our client terminal has all functions that allow you to develop, test and use your trading system. The development environment named MQL4 is integrated into the terminal. MQL4 consists of MetaEditor, Strategy Tester and Compiler.

Using these tools, you can develop:

Expert Advisors – programs that allow you to automate fully both analyzing and trading processes. Expert Advisors can relieve you from the routine of analyzing financial markets and performing trades;
Custom Indicators – applications similar to the embedded technical indicators that will help you to analyze markets;
Scripts – programs that automate single frequently repeated operations. For example, using a script you can close all positions by a single keystroke.

It is rather easy to develop trading systems using the development environment of MQL4. In MetaEditor, you will find detailed help topics and description of the programming language. Having developed your own trading system, you will be able to test it on historical data in the Strategy Tester. This can allow you to evaluate your trading system’s profitability, risk factor, and stability in a quick and easy way.

Naturally, it may be difficult to start developing one’s own trading system from scratch. The detailed description of the programming language is often insufficient for this. To make your initial steps to creating a trading system, you can visit the MQL4 Community website – www.mql4.com. This site represents a place where developers of trading systems meet, develop strategies, publish their articles and share their codes. You will find at the website of MQL4.Community:

Detailed description of the MQL4 programming language – docs.mql4.com
If you have any questions about any elements of the MQL4, visit this section. You will surely find the detailed description of the language construction you are interested in.
A huge database of ready-made Expert Advisors, technical indicators and scripts – codebase.mql4.com
Many developers publish their codes for free. The Code Base counts hundreds of useful Expert Advisors, indicators and scripts. You will find something interesting there for sure.
Articles about various problems of programming trading systems – articles.mql4.com
Developing a trading system, you may face one or another problem. Try to find a ready solution in the Articles section. Another developer might have experienced your problem before and has already published a solution for it. You can publish your own articles devoted to solving various problems. This will get you fame and money – authors are paid for their materials published.
Forum of developers of trading systems – forum.mql4.com
If you can?t find a solution for your problem in any sections described above, you can ask your question in the forum. Thousands of people participate in discussions, they will surely help you. Moreover, you can use the forum for just mixing with Community members or sharing your successes in the sphere of development of Expert Advisors.

As any other new phenomenon, automated trading has its critics and skeptics. However, automated trading is quite a serious technology. Visit the website of the Automated Trading Championship (championship.mql4.com) and you will see it yourself. This is an annual championship with total prize pool of USD$80,000. Hundreds of developers from all over the world participate in it. Their Expert Advisors operate fully independently within three months. Three Winners will share the total prize amount at the end of the contest. The Championship will showcase Expert Advisors and automated trading.

On the Championship website, you will find much useful practical information and see how different trading systems work under identical conditions. In the News section, various materials devoted to development and use of Expert Advisors are published on a daily basis. If you feel something to be unclear, you may ask any Participants about this. Moreover, you can participate in this Championship yourself and get one of three money prizes and the title of The Best Developer of Expert Advisors!

Learning programming for the Metatrader 5

MetaTrader Global — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 02:12:55 +0000

The main difference between MQL4 and MQL5 is the appearance of the object oriented programming. So you can start learning MQL4 now, because:

If You know MQL4 the only thing in MQL5 to change in your programs will be names of a couple of start() init() deinit() functions;
If you know MQL4 the transition to MQL5 will be smooth;
If you know MQL5 you will know C language as well because they are VERY close;
Due to providing structures and other improvements in MQL5, there will be a LOT of new possibilities to merge MQL5 with any database, math, statistical packages etc.

Promised that MQL5 will be very similar to classic C / C++, except:

Pointers;
Goto operator;
Anonymous enumeration;
Address arithmetic and class inheritance;
Some exotic staff from so-called “object-oriented programming”: classes constructors do not have parameters, no multiply inheritance etc.

Operators overload and ternary operation ( expr ? op1 : op2; ) will probably be included later.

So MQL5 will be VERY close to C. The greatest improvement are structures. If you already know some basic MQL4 programming and want to learn C++, you can start with books like C++ for Dummies. You can also use C++ BNF description.

Source

Public Beta Testing of the MetaTrader 5 Terminal

MetaTrader Global — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 07:02:02 +0000

The public beta testing of the MetaTrader 5 client terminal starts today. This is the notional day for all of you, who are waiting for our new trading platform.

The stage of the closed beta testing of the client terminal is over. Totally, we’ve received about 300 bug reports and suggestions from our testers. The most of bugs have been fixed, while suggestions have been considered, and we’re planning to implement them. Since the testing started, we’ve released 20 builds of the client terminal.

Now it’s time for the next stage in the development of the MetaTrader 5 platform. Today the public testing of the MetaTrader 5 client terminal starts. Any trader can participate in it. You can also inform your traders about the testing and offer the new terminal to them.

To become a tester one should download the terminal, test it and publish bug reports/suggestions on the MQL5 community forum – http://www.mql5.com/en/forum/

You can download MetaTrader 5 Client Terminal by the following link: http://www.metatraderglobal.com/metatrader-5-download/

Plans for MetaTrader 5 Testing

1. The platform testing will take about 5-6 months.

2. This will be a step-by-step testing. New possibilities will be added at each step. During the first testing stage that starts today, the client terminal will work only with Forex. Further we will add CFD, Futures, equities and options.

3. The current terminal version is offered without a strategy tester. It will be included at next steps.

4. From November, 2009, we open the testing of back-office components of the platform in brokerage companies.

We do our best to offer you the maximally stable product, that’s why the testing process has a multi-step structure. We want to thoroughly check everything before we offer the platform to our clients.

Metatrader 5 Development – Interview with Stanislav Starikov

MetaTrader Global — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 08:29:15 +0000

The new Metatrader 5 platform and the MQL5 language are nearing the end of development and will be probably launched in fall 2009. MT5 will replace MT4 and the new code is completely written from scratch. The bad point is that MT5 will be not compatible with MT4. This means that every indicator and expert advisor needs to be rewritten to work with the Metatrader 5 platform.

Metatrader 5 features

High performance and outstanding working speed
3 chart-types, 21 timeframes and over 70 analytical tools
5 order types and 4 execution modes available for trading operations on different markets (forex, options, futures and stocks)
Advanced built-in reports on all trading activities
MQL5 development environment with new IntellySence system and more advanced strategy tester

Interview with Stanislav Starikov, leading programmer of Metatrader 5

Q: Stanislav, there are several topics in forums about the development of a new platform MetaTrader 5 and the MQL5. Could you, please, tell us about this?

A: Really, the development of the new trading platform is in full swing. And MQL5 development is its closing stage. And like the previous time with MQL4, we are going to release the development environment MQL5 earlier than the client terminal, so that traders can get acquainted with all new possibilities of our language.

Q: And what are its new possibilities?

A: First of all, it includes new data types, a new structure, classes and, in this respect, the object-oriented programming. We also introduced projects and considerably increased the program execution speed.

Q: Please, tell us about the new data type. What for are they introduced in MQL5?

A: In MQL4 we had three main data types: INT, DOUBLE and STRING. Now we have added new types: CHAR, SHORT, LONG, FLOAT, STRINGS became Unicode. We also added STRUCTURES and CLASSES. What for are we doing this? In programming languages like C++ such data types already exist. And now it is much easier to transfer source codes written in C++ into our MQL5.

For example, the winner of the championship 2007 (Better) told in his interview that he developed his EA in C++ and after debugging it he transferred the code into MQL4. Now all this will be much easier to do. Besides, already in MQL4 we included the possibility of using Windows API functions or functions from other DLL’s. Very often such functions may be of these structure types. And now we made such calls easier, meaning, we made working with MQL5 easier.

Q: What are CLASSES and Object-oriented programming?

A: A CLASS is the same STRUCTURE, but with added functions for processing data of this STRUCTURE. It allows hiding functionality, i.e. all these FUNCTIONS inside a CLASS; And a program now can be constructed out of CLASS OBJECTS like out of bricks. First of all, it simplifies programming, i.e. it becomes easier to write such programs, to read such programs and to modify such programs in the future. And consider the situation when Programs become larger and larger. In this situation CLASSES will be of great help.

Q: Could you please tell us about PROJECTS?

A: As I have already said, programs are becoming more and more complicated. In this respect, it is reasonable to divide a source text into several files. For example, one file for each CLASS. PROJECTS introduced into MQL5 allow assembling a ready program out of these files. This is also a great help in writing a program.

Q: Stanislav, you have said that you increased MQL5 program execution speed. How did you manage to do this? Well, in MQL4 the speed was rather high.

A: Tell you the truth, we had reserves. Actually, in MQL4 a compiler gets an interpretable byte code. In MQL5 we also get a byte code, but like in >NET during the code uploading, this byte code is transformed into a native x86 code, i.e. processor commands. So as a result, the program in a native language works much faster than any byte code. Moreover, we invested much time and effort into the question of code optimization. Thus we managed to speed up the program execution.

Q: Can you tell how much higher the program execution speed will be in MQL5 as compared to that in MQL4?

A: No, I can’t tell this right now, because we haven’t conducted objective tests yet. But I can tell for sure, that the speed will be several times higher. Well, wait for news.

You can watch the interview and ask questions to Stanislav here.

Written by Glen Gotsk

MetaTrader 4 Plugins You Must Have

MetaTrader Global — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 23:59:17 +0000

Post not found, please view the related posts below. Related posts:MetaTrader 4: The Worlds Number 1 Forex Dealing Program Using Neural Networks In MetaTrader Decorating Indicators – MetaTrader 4 MetaTrader 4 – The World’s Most Common Trading Software What Is Automated Trading

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MQL5 Reference Guide in Russian

MetaTrader Global — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 05:27:15 +0000

A few days ago MetaQuotes published a MQL5 reference guide in Russian. You can find the MetaTrader 5 and MetaEditor 5 user guides in your \MetaTrader 5\Help\ folder. The English version is not coming out yet. However, if you use a translation service, for example Google Translate, you should understand it without too many problems if you are good in MQL4, because the terminology is basically the same. Anyway, if you have problems with the translation, you can always ask for help on the MQL4 forums – http://forum.mql4.com/.

Lets hope MetaQuotes will publish the MetaTrader 5 public beta in September when people get back from their holidays. Traders should have time to prepare for the Automated Trading Championship in 2010 (Expert Advisors written in MQL5).

Source: http://metatrader5.blogspot.com/2009/08/mql5-referenced-guide-in-russian.html