Filter trades by age. Number of bars elapsed rather than minutes.

[Mantadiver]

I am trying to close trades after x bars and the only option I can find in the close block is to "Filter trades by age" in minutes, not bars.

When using bars that have no fixed time I have to count the bars.

Is there a way to filter by age in terms of the number of bars that have passed since open ?

If not I will try to build a separate running bar counter for each trade unless you feel it worthy of being added to the wish list.

Thank you.

[fxDreema]

I think once in the past someone asked the same question, I don't remember what solution I gave him. But I think that with some calculations you can get the number of minutes from the bars. I don't know what calculation and I am actually very very bad in mathematics, but here is some example that shows that you can do such things.

MathFloor((TimeCurrent() + 86400) / 86400) * 86400

Here TimeCurrent() gives you the current time, the value that this function gives is going up with 1 each second, so the value is the number of seconds since 1 Jan 1970. More here: https://www.epochconverter.com/

And MathFloor() is a MQL function that is described like this "The function returns integer numeric value closest from below."

So, the whole calculation is giving you the time at 00:00 of the current day, no matter if TimeCurrent() is giving you the time at 02:10 or 18:45 of the day.

So there should be similar formula that turns the age of the trade into number of candles.

[fxDreema]

Let's say the age is 55 minutes. The age written in MQL4 is like this:

OrderCloseTime() - OrderOpenTime()

If the period is 15 minutes, then you can just divide: 55 / 15. The result is 3.666. Now, you can use either MathFloor() or MathCeil(), the first function will give you 3 from 3.666 and the second will give you 4 from 3.666. Try this: http://prntscr.com/ikmrdw

[Mantadiver]

The candles I am using are achievement based and therefore each one has a different amount of time.

I have resorted to:-

a) Running a continuous bar count on each bar open = (Current Bar Number)
b) Recording the current bar number when a new trade is placed = (Trade Start Bar Number)
c) Calculating the number of bars between now & when the trade started = (Current Bar Number) - (Trade Start Bar Number)

A little crude and simple but appears to be working.

Many thanks for the input.