Hello Paul,



On 20 Oct 95  15:10:56 Paul Edwards wrote to All...



 PE> Hi, I have this info on Metastock format, but the .dat files

 PE> are not text, they are some sort of binary.  Does anyone know

 PE> how they are stored internally?  Failing that, could someone

 PE> enter data for a bogus company (called XYZ or something) with

 PE> a price of $6.66 on 13/12/95 etc and then give me a hexdump

 PE> of the created file?  It is easier to reverse-engineer the

 PE> data format if I know an example of the input.  I do have

 PE> some metastock data here, but I don't know the values inside

 PE> it, all I know is that it is the S&P index for unknown dates.

 PE> I have made an unsuccessful attempt, as you will see below 

 PE> the quote.



 PE> ============================================

 PE>  * Original From: Maurice Tindall, 3:800/822

 PE>  * Original To  : Paul Edwards, 3:711/934.9

 PE>  * Original Date: 1995-10-09 08:15

 PE> ============================================



I'm not quite sure what you're looking for Paul but would it help if you 

were to convert these files into comma-delimited format?  Then you could

compare the ascii with the binary and all would be revealed.



If so then there is a program called Stable put out by Stable Technical

Graphs which could be of interest.  It is a technical analysis program -

quite good but limited in that it only has around 20 indicators - but it

does allow you to easily convert Metastock files into comma delimited 

ascii format and, further, you can choose the number of fields you wish to

enter which is helpful if you don't need the highs and lows, for instance.



I downloaded it from the Internet by ftp from...

 

    oak.oakland.edu/simtel/win3/finance.     The name is stab-(something)



It would be on jumbo.com too and probably on a local mirror site.



Incidentally the OI stands for Open Interest - not quite sure what it is

but think it has something to do with derivatives - options etc on the

underlying stock.



Regards.........Maurice



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