You can use the ascii text files exported from MetaTrader to search for patterns with PAL but you must first delete the header line, save the file in .txt format
and then convert it to PAL compatible format. Note that both daily and intraday data exported from MetaTrader are converted by PAL as intraday data but that
makes no difference to the search. The complete steps to export data from MetaTrader and convert it to PAL format are outlined below:Step1: Data export from MetaTrader:
(1) Click Tools
and then select History Center or hit the F2 key
(2) Double-click on the instrument to export historical data for and then select the periodicity (for example EURUSD - M5)
(3) Click
Export, select ASCII Text (*.prn) in the Save as type field and specify the target directory and file name
(4) Click Save to export the historical data
Step 2: Delete header and change the file extension from .prn to .txt
(1) Run Notepad
(2) Open the MetaTrader text file you saved. Make sure you select "All Files" as the "
File or type"
(3) Delete the header line and then make sure there are no empty lines at the beginning or at the end of file.
(4) Click Edit and then Select All.
Right click mouse and select copy.
(5) Click File and then New. Select No to ignore changes.
(6) Right click mouse and select Paste. Warning:
make sure there are no blank lines at the start or end of file. If any, delete them.
(7) Click File and select Save as to save the file. Type in a file name and click Save.
.
Step 3: Convert the historical data format to PAL format
(1) From the main PAL menu select Tools and then Intraday File Creation.
(2) Select as the source file the file saved in Step 2.7 and specify the correct file settings (yyyymmdd and comma)
(3) Hit Convert
and select a new directory to save the file (or the same directory with a different file name) and click Save to complete the conversion.
Now you can use the newly created text file in PAL to search or scan for daily or intraday patterns. Note: Daily data files exported from MetaTrader
include a default Time field so they must be converted using the same procedure as with intraday data files.
