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1990-05-28
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What PML does
------------------------------
PML (Prodigy MetaStock Load) reads a file containing the printed
output from Prodigy or Dow Jones Historical Quotes and extracts
stock quotes from the file. These quotes are written to another
file that can then be imported into a spreadsheet or loaded
directly into MetaStock (*) Professional's data base.
What You Will Need to Use PML
------------------------------
You will need some method of "capturing" the Prodigy printer
output to a file, such as PRN2FILE, LPTx701. Many BBS's contain
versions of these programs. These programs make it possible to
print your mail, bulletins, quotes, news, etc. from Prodigy.
Prodigy "thinks" it is sending the output to a real printer at
LPT1:, but instead, it is being added to your print file.
Other Programs You Might Find Useful
--------------------------------------
Another useful program to have is a Shareware program called
DKEY. This program allows you to automate the keystrokes
required to log into Prodigy, jump to Quote List and print
your quotes. If you use DKEY, you should also get a program
called PROWIDE (written by Pete Royston, Prodigy ID DBRK81A).
This program has a side effect of creating a type-ahead
buffer for Prodigy input commands. This prevents the
keystroke automation from causing Prodigy to beep while it is
still WORKING.
Converting Prodigy Quotes to Spreadsheet Input Format
------------------------------------------------------
Once you have captured the Prodigy quotes in a file, you will want
to do something with them, right? This is where PML comes in. It
can read your Prodigy print file, skip over the letters and
bulletins you felt you had to save for later, extracting only the
quotes. The quotes are written to a file, sorted by symbol and
date. The symbol and date have quotes (") around them so that you
can import them into a spreadsheet easily. The default name for this
file is "PMLASC.PRN". Though this file can be named anything you want,
the rest of the document will refer to it as PMLASC.PRN.
The following is a sample of the format of the data in the PMLASC.PRN
file with the 6 fields, Symbol, Date, High, Low, Close, Volume (in
hundreds):
"AAPL","05/24/90",42.250,41.500,42.000,13226
"ABT","05/25/90",73.875,72.500,73.125,2024
(*) MetaStock Professional is a stock charting program from
Equis Software.
For MetaStock Professional Users
---------------------------------
If you have MetaStock Professional, PML can update your MSP data
files with the quotes from the PMLASC.PRN file.
PML also generates a report as it updates the MSP data files. For
each symbol updated, it contains the number of quotes, the AVERAGE
VOLUME for the symbol, the CHANGE IN PRICE from the previous
close, and the VOLUME% CHANGE (from the average volume). This
last value can be very useful in spotting unusual activity in a
security. This report can give you a jump on the rest of the
world as they wait for their Investor's Daily to arrive. This
report is written to the file PML.RPT in the MSP DATA directory.
An additional file is placed in the MSP DATA directory. It is
named PMLSYM.SUM, and its purpose is to keep a running total of
the volume, high, and low for each symbol in the MASTER.
+------------------------------------------------------------+
| N O T E |
| The first time you run PML to update your MSP files, it |
| will take MUCH LONGER than normally would be required, |
| because it reads each file completely to compute the |
| necessary statistics, such as TOTAL VOLUME, HIGH, and |
| LOW price. After the totals have been computed and |
| stored in the file "PMLSYM.SUM" , it will not be neces- |
| sary for PML to re-compute these amounts, so the update |
| will be extremely fast. |
| |
+------------------------------------------------------------+
How to Use PML
-------------------------
USAGE: PML {?} {-d [MSPdir]} {-q} {-[a|A] f0} {-p} {-v} f1 {..fn}
where ? = this help screen
-a = create ASCII format output in f0
-A = append to ASCII format output in f0
-d = specification of the path to the MSP data directory
-h = in conjunction with "-v", will divide all volume for
each updated symbol by 100
-I = create 7-field ASCII output file only
-p = print a summary report of all MSP files
-qx = Flag for level of "quietness" during MSP updating
where x is:
0 = "quiet" mode (suppresses all update messages)
1 = totals for each symbol as it is updated
2 = very detailed output (slows down processing considerably)
-v = verify updated MetaStock files are in date order
-s = skip symbols not in MSP data base
MSPdir = the path to the MSP data directory (default DATA)
f0 = output file to contain "ASCII formatted" quotes
(default PMLASC.PRN)
f1..fn = files containing Prodigy quotes or
Dow Jones Historical Quotes (//HQ)
The primary function of PML is to scan your Prodigy print file for
stock quotes and make them into daily quotes. In order to do
this, you have to tell PML where the Prodigy print file is
located. This is usually the only command line parameter that is
necessary.
Suppose you have the following directories set up:
\PRODIGY \MSP \COMMANDS \SAVE
. | .
. V pml.exe
today \DATA
In other words, you have a file in the \PRODIGY directory named
"today" which is where you gather your Prodigy print lines. You
have also placed "pml.exe" in some directory which is in your DOS
PATH specification. Finally, your MetaStock data is in a
subdirectory of \MSP called DATA. In order to run PML so that it
extracts the quotes from \PRODIGY\today, creates a file called
\MSP\pmlasc.prn, and updates the data files in \MSP\DATA, you need to
be in the \MSP directory when you type:
PML \prodigy\today
If you want to name the ASCII file (normally "PMLASC.PRN") some
other name, or place it in another directory (say, \SAVE), you
would need to type
PML -a \SAVE\other.nam \prodigy\today
Additional PML Usage Notes
----------------------------
One nice feature of PML is that it can "fix" your MSP files if
they get out of date sequence (usually due to use of
MCONVERT). It reads the entire MSP data file, merges in the
quotes from Prodigy (or Dow Jones), sorts them, matching dates up,
and then writes the whole file out in order, dropping any
duplicates. Dates read from the ASCII quote file supercede those
in the MSP data file, so you can make corrections by changing your
ASCII quote for a particular date.
PML will allow you to obtain your quotes on weekends or early
Monday morning before the market opens. Even though the Prodigy
header says that the quote is for a Saturday, for example, PML is
aware that the market isn't open on Saturdays, so the quote is
"fixed up" to be for the preceding Friday. Even if the quote is
listed on Monday, if it is prior to the market opening, it will
still be fixed up to be a Friday quote.
Also, you can keep gathering print data to the Prodigy print file
for days, weeks or months. PML doesn't mind. It can handle up to
10,000 quotes in the Prodigy print file. No need to keep creating
"daily" files. Personally, I let the quotes and letters,
bulletins, etc. accumulate for a month or so. Then I start a new
file and name the old one something like "upto1209.lst" and then
back that up to a floppy for historical reasons. You can input
that file to PML again any time..no problem.
If you decide to start following a stock, fund or bond, say
AAPL, and you haven't added the security to MetaStock yet; then
when PML comes across a new symbol, it will ask you for the "full
company name" of the symbol and add it to the data base for you.
Be sure you have enough room left in your data base, however.
You can only have 255 data files per MetaStock data directory.
Occasionally you should run MSSORT to drop any old ones.
As just described, PML will "beep" at you and ask you to
input a company symbol if it encounters a symbol not
contained in the MSP MASTER file. If you are gathering
quotes into one file and updating more than one MSP MASTER
file, this could be a real hassle. So, I added a switch "-s"
which says to "skip missing symbols". Thus, if you run one
file past 2 or more MSP data bases, only the symbols that are
in a data base will be updated. This means you'll have to use
the more traditional method of adding stocks to your MSP data
base, i.e., you'll have to do it through MSP.
If you have Dow Jones Historical quotes, just specify the input
file containing the quotes as you would the Prodigy print image
file. PML will pick out the quote data from any Dow Jones News or
other text. If you have captured DJA (Dow Jones Averages), it is
necessary to modify the text slightly. PML will change the heading
"INDUSTRIALS" to "STOCK DJ-30" (if you are calling the 30
Industrials by some other symbol name, you should edit the PMLASC.PRN
file to change this name). Also, PML adds one zero to the volume figures,
because it appears that Dow Jones lies; they claim the volume is
expressed in 100's, but it is really in 1000's.
Summary of PML Features
-----------------------
1) Extracts quote data from Prodigy print image file. PML
applies extensive checking to each line of the Prodigy print
image file to ensure that only stock/bond/fund quote data is
extracted.
2) Ignores non-quote lines in Prodigy print image file, allowing
you to use the same file for saving printed mail, screen images,
etc.
3) Fixes up the dates of the quotes so that they are on the previous
business day. This allows quotes to be retrieved on weekends or
early in the morning before the market opens.
4) Allows multiple quotes for the same stock to be in the Prodigy
print image file. This allows you to accumulate quotes in a file
as long as you want without making you create a new file daily.
5) Optionally creates an ASCII formatted quote file suitable for
input to a spreadsheet program or MCONVERT (MetaStock utility).
6) Replaces and enhances the function of MCONVERT (MetaStock utility)
so that duplicate dates are not allowed in the MSP data file.
7) Allows the creation of a new MSP data file when a symbol is
added for the first time.
8) Extracts Dow Jones Historical Quote data as well.
PML Restrictions
-----------------
1) Only "5-field" symbols are supported by PML
2) No more than 10,000 quotes can be contained in a single Prodigy
quote file. If you need to input more quotes, break the file
into pieces and use multiple file names in the command line.
3) This program will not work beyond the year 1999.
4) No provision is made for holidays when date fixing is done.
5) The total number of quotes in the MSP data file cannot exceed 3000.
This is about 11 1/2 years of daily quote data.
How to Get Help
---------------
If you have any questions regarding the use of this program, or
you discover any problems, please send me a message on Prodigy
(JBMD65A).
Good luck, and happy charting!
RECENT CHANGES TO PML
-----------------------
Version Date Change(s)
------- ------- -----------------------------------------------
1.09 1/29/90 Added "-s" flag to "skip missing symbols"
Fixed problem which occurred when Prodigy
input quotes exceeded limit.
1.10 3/30/90 Bug fix for Mutual Funds and Bond quotes
1.11 4/23/90 Increased Prodigy print file QUOTE limit
from 2,000 to 10,000.
Place PML.RPT and PMLSYM.SUM files in MSP
DATA directory.
2.0 5/20/90 Added -q(0|1|2) to select level of reporting
during MSP updating
SAMPLE PML SUMMARY REPORT
Prodigy MetaStock Load (PML)
Summary Report for 02/23/90
AVG PRICE VOL%
EQUITY NAME HIGH LOW CLOSE VOLUME VOLUME CHANGE CHANGE
ALCOA 62.500 61.875 62.375 1762 4161 +0.125 -58%
Apple Computer 33.500 32.750 33.250 13389 14816 +0.250 -10%
Ames Dept Store 5.625 5.500 5.625 2181 2348 +0.000 -7%
AMERICAN FAMILY 15.500 15.250 15.250 1231 1348 -0.250 -9%
AMER HOME PROD 99.375 97.750 98.500 1757 2063 -1.375 -15%
KING OF DMK NIK 6.625 6.375 6.375 7954 4017 -0.125 +98% V
The PML Summary Report (found in file "PML.RPT") contains a summary
of the symbol updates for the day. If the volume exceeds 50% of the
average volume, a 'V' appears in the right column. If the price is a
New Low or New High, the characters "NL" or "NH" are shown in the
far right columns.
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| If you find this program useful, please send $20 to: |
| Martin Moore, 11420 Rothschild Place, Dept. H, Dublin, CA, 94568 |
| This will entitle you to a version without an expiration date |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+