Comparing open and close price to themselves and indicator values

[Tyler7498]

Hi,

I have very little programming experience and have two questions that are probably really simple.

1. How do you compare the opening or closing price to an indicator (specifically a 50 period DEMA)?

I tried:

if (Open[0] > DEMA(50))
{
Do the Following
}
// This gives me a CS0019 error which says the types of data can't be compared. Wouldn't the opening price be an int and the DEMA value also be an int?

After I tried to get the top code to work for a while I thought I had a smart idea of building the condition in the strategy builder and copying the code to the indicator I am trying to create. I copied this code from the Strategy Builder.

protected override void OnStateChange()
{

else if (State == State.DataLoaded)
{
DEMA1 = DEMA(Close, 50);
}

}

protected override void OnBarUpdate()
{

if ((Open[0] > DEMA1[0]) && (Close[0] > DEMA1[0]))
{
}

}
// This gives a CS103 error and says that DEMA1 does not exist in the current context.


2. I am trying to write: if the opening price of the previous candle plus x number of ticks equals the closing price of the current bar. Is the following code right?

if ((Open[1] + (x * TickSize)) == Close[0])
{
}


Thanks in advance for any help.

[NinjaTrader_PaulH]

Hello Tyler7498,

Thanks for your post.

1. You were close in both cases:

Case 1: Open[0] > DEMA(50) you got an error because the compiler thinks you are comparing the Open price of the current bar to the entire DEMA data series. You can write this as Open[0] > DEMA(50)[0] (is the Open price of the current bar greater than the 50 period DEMA current price).

Case 2: Using the strategy builder, which is a great way to see the code, you likely missed where the strategy builder code included at the top of the generated code something like private DEMA DEMA1; which creates a private instance of the DEMA called DEMA1. It does that to more efficiently use resources although not required as case #1 will also work, this would be the preferred way to write the code.

2. Yes.

[Tyler7498]

Thanks it works now!