Why Does Removing ONE Line of Unused Space Cause Profits to Reappear?

Forums › ProRealTime English forum › ProOrder support › Why Does Removing ONE Line of Unused Space Cause Profits to Reappear?

  • This topic has 30 replies, 4 voices, and was last updated 4 years ago by avatarBard.
Viewing 15 posts - 16 through 30 (of 31 total)
1 2 3
  • 05/11/2020 at 12:28 PM #131122
    Bard
    Vonasi wrote:

    ultra reliable and stable Apple Mac computers that never have bugs or viruses?

    Never ever had one single virus in 20 yrs of using Macs. Never get bugs that can’t be resolved quickly. That’s why I love Apple. They fix their problems in a timely and professional manner. They don’t leave paying customers to experience issues for 7 months without any end in sight. I don’t have any other issues with other s/ware on this Mac either, in fact sophisticated s/ware like Logic Pro X runs like a dream on this machine unlike PRT software. Mac reliability was why I started using Macs 20 yrs ago when I was in the music business. People using Windows had constant crashes using Logic and Cubase. Window’s was joke in the biz. G3 and 4 Macs were stable and reliable and without the nonsense of viruses and bugs and never ending software updates with Windows – which I know from first hand experience hasn’t changed.

    Please don’t tell me you think the gaff (and that’s a polite term I’m using) that is the scrolling issue (on charts and within windows) is acceptable or some kind of joke? I’m referring to:

    Vonasi wrote:

    but sometimes when you “go off peak” and then you get stuck in a bit of poo poo

    Poo poo? Off peak? What does “off peak”  mean?

     

    05/11/2020 at 1:07 PM #131129
    Vonasi

    There is no point getting into a discussion about the pros and cons of Apple over Windows with an Apple user. Never has been and never will be. It is like trying to point out to someone who has always bought Ford cars all their life that Chevrolet’s latest product is actually quite good. They will swear that Fords are much better than Chevrolet even whilst under the bonnet trying to work out why it isn’t working properly after having just paid twice as much for it than a similar Chevrolet would have cost.

    Off peak was meant to be ‘off piste’. Did you find any ‘off piste’ fellow Apple users to test your blank line problem out on another Mac?

     

    05/11/2020 at 1:24 PM #131130
    Bard

    Wish I’d filmed it GraHal, I can really only tell you what happened and what I saw with my own eyes (and took screenshots of):

    Remove a line of blank space and make £1835.
    Re-add the offending line of unused space and lose £269.

    I have another idea what caused it. I bring code from Text Edit into PRT. Sometimes PRT tells you it doesn’t like characters that are invisible to you like a double space between two characters, it gives you a red squiggly line and you have to back space all the way up to the nearest character on the left and the hit spacebar to get a  single space reestablished between the lines of code so they can work. Sometimes I have to do that 10+ times throughout a code I’ve added from Text Edit. I’d surmise that it is hidden characters imported in to PRT that cause the code to not work as intended, it’s just with this case there were no red squiggly warning lines that there was an issue.

    As for searching and trying to find indicators that I’ve created over the last few day and being unable to find any of them in my indicators list with the only solution being to quit and reboot PRT, that’s an account issue or PRT interaction with Mac (and vice versa) issue because I’ve not come across that issue using other s/ware on this Mac. Nonetheless lost all his optimised parameters for a system when he restarted his platform the next day, they simply weren’t there. Do you experience save issues like mine and Nonetheless’s with Windows?

    1 user thanked author for this post.
    avatar GraHal
    05/11/2020 at 1:37 PM #131132
    GraHal
    Bard wrote:

    Do you experience save issues like mine and Nonetheless’s with Windows?

    I used to (and more weird issue also)  when I had 100’s of .itf’s listed in the backtest window … which is why I have been encouraging you and Nonetheless to clear the decks then see if you have the same Issues?

    I had assumed that as I do not get such Issues anymore that PRT have improved something or other, but maybe my assumption above is correct … it was all the dross I had on my Platform after all?

     

    05/11/2020 at 2:57 PM #131143
    Bard

    Clearing the desk may be a last resort, most of my stuff is now copied into Text Edit anyway.
    Itf’s are such tiny files I don’t see how it could affect PRT memory or temporarily “losing” items?

    Dross? And by dross you mean years of superlative cutting edge trading indicators and systems, right!?

    1 user thanked author for this post.
    avatar GraHal
    05/11/2020 at 3:37 PM #131150
    GraHal
    Bard wrote:

    And by dross you mean years of superlative cutting edge trading indicators and systems, right!?

    One will do! I just want one I can trust not to lose me money!!!!??? 🙂

    Can’t wait to see what is on offer on Nicolas MarketPlace??

    Bard wrote:

    I don’t see how it could affect PRT memory or temporarily “losing” items?

    I agree re memory.

    I was thinking more about lack of a decent indexing system so when we have 100’s listed on the backtest window and PRT tries to save changes and it can’t find the system to save to (due to no indexing or whatever) and then the process times out … result NO save??

     

    1 user thanked author for this post.
    avatar Bard
    05/11/2020 at 5:32 PM #131177
    Bard

    Right got you @Vonasi, yeah you’re talking to a member of  the “Apple cult” The indoctrination was strong…!

    No, I don’t know many Apple users on here. We’re an awkward bunch, typically in the minority and clearly prefer style over substance!
    Think I know what happened here, please refer to my previous post about hidden characters, could that make sense?

    05/11/2020 at 6:52 PM #131190
    Vonasi
    Bard wrote:

    please refer to my previous post about hidden characters, could that make sense?

    No idea. I never cut and paste code from anywhere but a PRT programming window or from inserted code on these forums using the highlight button in the top right of the inserted code window and then CTRL+C. I can’t imagine that without the use of magic that a sentence of code that effects strategy performance can be in the code but you can’t see it and the code checker can’t see it either – but then again I’m not a big Apple products user so perhaps they do use magic? I once tried an iPad but it only persuaded me that I hate touch screens and I hate Apple prices.

    05/11/2020 at 8:06 PM #131197
    Bard
    Vonasi wrote:

    I can’t imagine that without the use of magic that a sentence of code that effects strategy performance can be in the code but you can’t see it and the code checker can’t see it either

    And yet it did in the case I’ve described above — I actually tapped on the blue do/undo buttons using “backtest” strategy after each tap, to add and remove that unused blank line and did that many times because I could not believe what I was seeing after hours of investigation, and looking at the code in the ML machine learning version (on the left in my screenshots). Profits, no profits, profits, no profits…

    …and something very similar occurred here a few weeks back but this time text-compare .com spotted the subtle difference of space between lines that caused a big difference in profits in otherwise identical code in two systems: https://www.prorealcode.com/topic/machine-learning-in-proorder/page/9/#post-126323

    What happened here was that I had two different profits for the same “identical” systems £21k v’s £63k.

    That code that created £21k in profits, I knew this was too low from previous tests, so I cleaned up the text compare blue highlighted code to make it look like the code on the right hand side of the image (which had produced £63k). Text compare found  — on the left hand side of the second white image — a messy amount of spacing between sections of code, lots of “////////” above the “Elsif HeuristicsAlgo2” line of code. I removed the “/////////” and the two codes looked “identical” in PRT but somehow one still produced £63k (the juanj version, blue equity curve and top code in first screenshot) and the other £21k (juanj version but without his name on the system).

    Referring to the left hand code again in the second (white) image: I investigated further. If you look at the left hand side of that white code image screenshot you can also see two separate “one space” indents above and below the “Elsif HeuristicsAlgo2” and also highlighted in blue.  That difference is not evident when comparing the codes in the two versions of PRT. PRT doesn’t red flag these indent differences. The spacing (highlighted by text compare in blue) was what was causing the difference in profits because once I removed the two blue spacings/indents above and below the “Elsif HeuristicsAlgo2” the two codes then became perfectly identical and only then did the profits of the two identical systems match, both at £63k.

    Question: Can you see the fact that there is a one space bar indent above and below the line “Elsif HeuristicsAlgo2” in the first image of the system in the lower bottom right that produces the wobbly equity chart in the top of the image? I can’t and if it wasn’t for GraHal’s suggestion to use text compare I’d never have figured it out. In fact I went on to add a few more months to the backtest of the non juanj named system (brown equity curve) and it surpassed the £63k profit to make £84k but this was before we realised the true spread on coffee was something astronomical like 60 ticks… (pls see image below).

    Something, in terms of characters and spacing, is most definitely causing an issue with PRT’s results. I also don’t feel its unreasonable for a user to copy text from one app into PRT I just didn’t know I need x-ray vision to determine any differences!

    05/11/2020 at 8:24 PM #131199
    Vonasi
    Bard wrote:

    Question: Can you see the fact that there is a one space bar indent above and below the line “Elsif HeuristicsAlgo2

    Sorry Bard but whenever you post a screen shot there is so much going on in it and all the text is completely unreadable due to its size in the screen shot and I can’t zoom in! Why don’t you use a screen capture app and zoom in on the important info. I use Lightshot and can create easily readable screenshots such as the one attached.

    1 user thanked author for this post.
    avatar Bard
    05/11/2020 at 9:03 PM #131207
    GraHal

    See ‘No indent’ compared to ‘indent’ … attached

    05/11/2020 at 9:40 PM #131213
    Vonasi

    Thanks for those better images.

    Code is indented so that is easier to see which code is between IF THEN ENDIF instructions or FOR NEXT loop instructions to assist with reading the code and de-bugging it. Indentation can only change if there is a missing ENDIF or NEXT or if a NEXT or ENDIF is in the wrong place.

    05/12/2020 at 2:52 PM #131321
    Bard

    Yes I appreciate there were differences on my last screenshot that went on to top the £63k and make £84k but remember that was after I had been changing the code (copy and pasting no doubt) and we can see the indent is double when in fact a correctly formatted ML code should only have one indent spacing for the code for this section: (yes, it won’t show the indent in the html editor, I’m just referring to the section of code we’re talking about).

    But also recall that the screenshots of the MBFX Belkhayate system (top of this thread) and the Ehlers ML2 which have correctly indented and identical code (albeit but for the fact that there were two tiny unseen one space indents above and below the “heuristicsAlgo 2” line in the Ehler’s system). This is what I am trying to convey in this thread:

    By making what should be insignificant changes to the code — like deleting that Belkhayate unused line of space or a single one spacebar to the right indent in the Ehlers system — it made massive differences to the final profit! I’ll film it next time and poat the itf.

    And here just to confirm that my account behaves in a manner that you guys aren’t (fortunately) having to endure, this is a perfect example:
    I post an multicolour indicator code and ask Nicolas why it’s misbehaving because on some timeframes like the 4 hour it goes all grey and Nicolas says it is fine for him on the 3, 10 min and 4 hour TF!
    Please see the indicator below and the few comments afterwards:

    https://www.prorealcode.com/topic/8x-multicolour-market-states/#post-131170

    Well today I can guarantee you with the same untouched multicolour indicator code that I pasted yesterday on the forums, I’ve still got a grey 4 hour Bollinger Band… and its  precisely these kind of account issues (along with save issues scrolling etc) that are literally driving me round the twist.

    Yes I take you point about PRT indexing GraHal, a very good point and one which I’ll ask PTR by email now that they have reached out to me.

    Thank you all for the continued support, it’s appreciated and means a lot to me when there are so many things going on with my account.

     

     

    05/12/2020 at 3:04 PM #131325
    Bard

    Sorry, I’ll zoom in on it next time.

    The indents aren’t the issue here in this thread, although GraHal has correctly spotted a badly formatted code from the last variation I made of the correctly formatted and indented code. That incorrectly coded system actually ended up making more (£84k v’s £63k), probably because one of the ML algos wasn’t formatted or fully functioning and I am sometimes seeing less is more with these algos. Eg 1 x ML can do better than a 2 x ML or 3 x ML system.

    Note:  The grey Bollinger indicator problem has been resolved in that it works on a 4 hr TF if I use a smaller amount of units, 1,000 in this case. I’d been using 1,500 and 3,000 units and it was greyed in instead of multicoloured, I don’t know why? Cheers,

    05/12/2020 at 3:07 PM #131326
    GraHal

    A point of info that may be relevant … way back  / early on in the ‘JuanJ ML Topic’ … Nicolas asked JuanJ to format the code so Nicolas could more easily get his head around it … that may be where the indents came from originally??

    For me, when I have some weird issue … I get up the next day and continue but try and forget the issue … only if it rears it’s head again (and stops me accomplishing what I want to) do I give it attention again?

    Life is too short?

    Is this Issue still hampering your good efforts Bard??

    1 user thanked author for this post.
    avatar Bard
  • Author
    Posts
Viewing 15 posts - 16 through 30 (of 31 total)
1 2 3

Find exclusive trading pro-tools on ProRealCode Marketplace

Similar topics:
bb trading one long one short on dax 9-17,30
mlutiple ut – does not take the large one
prt candles appear as one line
why does my indicator not work for currency?
why does my strategy take 3 positions at the same time?

Create your free account now and post your request to benefit from the help of the community
Register or Login