GetBar Always Returns 0

[steevcoco]

Hello:

I read a thread that said CurrentBar could not be relied on to be in sync within the OnMarketData method. So I am trying to store my custom bar data - indexed by barID - by getting the bar ID based on the time in the MarketDataEventArgs.

The problem is: absolutely every time I invoke GetBar it returns 0.

Here is the test case:

using System;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Diagnostics;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Drawing.Drawing2D;
using System.Xml.Serialization;
using NinjaTrader.Cbi;
using NinjaTrader.Data;
using NinjaTrader.Gui.Chart;

namespace NinjaTrader.Indicator
{
	public class MarketDataTest : Indicator
	{
		protected override void Initialize() {
			Overlay = true;
			CalculateOnBarClose = false;
		}

		protected override void OnBarUpdate() {
			Print("");
			Print("OnBarUpdate()");
			Print("   DateTime.Now=" + DateTime.Now);
			Print("   CurrentBar=" + CurrentBar);
			
			// ALWAYS 0!
			Print("   GetBar(DateTime.Now)=" + GetBar(DateTime.Now));
			// Assert:
			if (GetBar(DateTime.Now) != 0) throw new InvalidOperationException("Never thrown.");
			
			Print("      Time[0]=" + Time[0]);
			Print("      GetBar(Time[0])=" + GetBar(Time[0]));
			// Assert:
			if (GetBar(Time[0]) != 0) throw new InvalidOperationException("Never thrown.");
		}
		
		protected override void OnMarketData(MarketDataEventArgs evt) {
			Print("");
			Print("\tOnMarketData()");
			Print("\t   evt=" + evt);
			Print("\t   CurrentBar=" + CurrentBar);
			
			// I read a thread that said CurrentBar could not be relied on to be in sync
			// within the OnMarketData method.
			// So I am trying to store my custom bar data - indexed by barID - by getting
			// the bar ID based on the time in the MarketDataEventArgs.
			
			// NinjaScript > Language Reference > Data > Bars >
			// GetBar()
			// Definition
			// Returns the bar index of the 1st bar from oldest to newest
			// that matches the time stamp based on the DateTime parameter passed in.
			// If the time stamp passed in is older than the 1st bar,
			// a bar index of 0 is returned.
			// If the time stamp is newer than the last bar, the last bar index is returned.
			
			// ALWAYS 0!
			Print("\t   GetBar(evt.Time)=" + GetBar(evt.Time));
			// Assert:
			if (GetBar(evt.Time) != 0) throw new InvalidOperationException("Never thrown.");
		}
	}
}

[steevcoco]

I seem to have essentially solved this for myself: Bars.GetBar is returning what I expected.

2 questions remain:

1) Was I correct about CurrentBar being unreliable in sequence from the OnMarketData method?

2) Should the documentation for GetBar be updated to be clearer? (I think so ...)

[koganam]

I seem to have essentially solved this for myself: Bars.GetBar is returning what I expected.

2 questions remain:

1) Was I correct about CurrentBar being unreliable in sequence from the OnMarketData method?

2) Should the documentation for GetBar be updated to be clearer? (I think so ...)

GetBar() and Bars.GetBar() are different methods, belonging to different objects. GetBar() is not documented: it returns essentially the opposite of Bars.GetBar(); returning the number of barsAgo rather than the index of the referenced bar, which is what Bars.GetBar() returns.

[steevcoco]

I see this now: the documentation DOES give the syntax Bars.GetBar(DateTime time) I missed that at first. Yet still, I see no documentation for the method I was using. It might still be good to update the documentation for disambiguation ... Thanks for the reply. This part of my code is working now.