quantmod, getSymbols, csv

Something like:

getSymbols.John

function (Symbols, env, dir = "", return.class = "xts", extension = "csv",
    ...)
{
    importDefaults("getSymbols.csv")
    this.env <- environment()
    for (var in names(list(...))) {
        assign(var, list(...)[[var]], this.env)
    }
    default.return.class <- return.class
    default.dir <- dir
    default.extension <- extension
    if (missing(verbose))
        verbose <- FALSE
    if (missing(auto.assign))
        auto.assign <- TRUE
    for (i in 1:length(Symbols)) {
        return.class <- getSymbolLookup()[[Symbols[[i]]]]$return.class
        return.class <- ifelse(is.null(return.class), default.return.class,
            return.class)
        dir <- getSymbolLookup()[[Symbols[[i]]]]$dir
        dir <- ifelse(is.null(dir), default.dir, dir)
        extension <- getSymbolLookup()[[Symbols[[i]]]]$extension
        extension <- ifelse(is.null(extension), default.extension,
            extension)
        if (verbose)
            cat("loading ", Symbols[[i]], ".....")
        if (dir == "") {
            sym.file <- paste(Symbols[[i]], extension, sep = ".")
        }
        else {
            sym.file <- file.path(dir, paste(Symbols[[i]], extension,
                sep = "."))
        }
        if (!file.exists(sym.file)) {
            cat("\nfile ", paste(Symbols[[i]], "csv", sep = "."),
                " does not exist ", "in ", dir, "....skipping\n")
            next
        }
        fr <- read.csv(sym.file, header=TRUE) #added header=TRUE
        if (verbose)
            cat("done.\n")
        fr <- xts(matrix(fr$price, dimnames=list(index(x),'price')),
as.Date(fr$date),   # added for getSymbols.John
            src = "csv", updated = Sys.time()) # added for getSymbols.John

# removed colnames call from original getSymbols.csv

        fr <- convert.time.series(fr = fr, return.class = return.class)
        Symbols[[i]] <- toupper(gsub("\\^", "", Symbols[[i]]))
        if (auto.assign)
            assign(Symbols[[i]], fr, env)
    }
    if (auto.assign)
        return(Symbols)
    return(fr)
}
<environment: namespace:quantmod>

getSymbols('CREFglobaleq', src='John')

[1] "CREFGLOBALEQ"

CREFGLOBALEQ

price
1992-05-01 25.8429
1992-05-04 25.9774
1992-05-05 25.9964
1992-05-06 26.2335
1992-05-07 26.3368

I am also planning on making a skeleton function/functionality much
like newTA does for the charts - so hand modifications will be less
important.

Jeff

Hi John,

getSymbols.csv is not very robust at this time.  What needs to be done
is a clean generalization of the call, for cases that can't be covered
(like the date in the 3rd col, and superfluous data in cols 1 and 4,
if I am reading your data correctly).

I suspect something to identify the timestamp column, and the columns
you would like to include would make this more useful.  The other
option is to create your own custom getSymbols.John function, so
getSymbols('FILE', src="John") would do exactly what you want.  Simply
adding the below in the appropriate places to the getSymbols.csv
source would be all that is required.

For now:

x <- read.csv('CREFglobeq.csv',header=TRUE)
x <- xts(matrix(x$price,dimnames=list(index(x),'price')),as.Date(x$date))

            price
1992-05-01 25.8429
1992-05-04 25.9774
1992-05-05 25.9964
1992-05-06 26.2335
1992-05-07 26.3368

xts can be replaced by zoo, or any other time-series constructor you like.

Jeff


On Thu, Jul 17, 2008 at 11:10 AM, John P. Burkett <burkett at uri.edu> wrote:

Making a first attempt use quantmod's getSymbols to load data from a .csv
file, I have encountered a puzzling error message.
The response to
getSymbols("CREFglobaleq", from="1992-05-01", to="2008-06-30", src="csv")
is
Error in fromchar(x) :
 character string is not in a standard unambiguous format

My basic problem is ignorance about what is acceptable as "a standard
unambiguous format."  Explanations or references to documentation would be
greatly appreciated.

The first few rows of my CREFglobaleq.csv file read as follows:
fund     ,  price  ,  date      ,  id
CREFglob , 25.8429 , 1992-05-01 , 199205
CREFglob , 25.9774 , 1992-05-04 , 199205
CREFglob , 25.9964 , 1992-05-05 , 199205
CREFglob , 26.2335 , 1992-05-06 , 199205
CREFglob , 26.3368 , 1992-05-07 , 199205

Best regards,
John



--
John P. Burkett
Department of Environmental and Natural Resource Economics
and Department of Economics
University of Rhode Island
Kingston, RI 02881-0808
USA

phone (401) 874-9195

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--
Jeffrey Ryan
jeffrey.ryan at insightalgo.com

ia: insight algorithmics
www.insightalgo.com

Jeffrey Ryan
jeffrey.ryan at insightalgo.com

ia: insight algorithmics
www.insightalgo.com