[MAS-discuss] The yahoo data bug has been fixed.

[Jim C. <jt...@di...>]

All -

In spite of my busy schedule, I've managed to find the time to fix the
bug that was causing a core dump with the -w option when reading data
from yahoo in the new format.*  While doing that, I decided to also fix
the other yahoo-related problem - the addition of an extra field in the
data from yahoo - what appears to be the split-adjusted close value.
This field would show up in mas as an open interest field.  The fix
was to ignore, for each record, any extra fields beyond the expected 6
for stocks.

I'll probably put the fixed executable up on sourceforge soon.  However,
if you are interested in the fixed version, send me an email to let
me know (at my jtc at dim.com address).  The more requests I receive,
the more urgent classification I'll give this task, and the sooner I'll
be likely to get around to uploading it.

IMPORTANT NOTE:  If you've been using mas with the -w option and have
cached data files lying around (which reside in a directory named
cached_data under your mas directory), you need to delete these files
so that mas will create a fresh cache.  Otherwise, the files, which
are likely to be in the old format (with the extra field), will not
be updated correctly with the result that you will not see the latest
"fixed" data.  This is important because I will not have the time to
help people who have not read this note and taken the needed action.
(Of course, one purpose for the discussion list is for fellow mas users
to help those who are struggling with such issues, right?)

This will also give those who have not yet responded to my query about your
location to do so in the same email (that is, just include your country
of residence, and optionally, your city in the email).  [Thanks again to
those who have sent in this info.]


* For those who are interested, the problem was caused by yahoo adding an
html comment at the beginning of the data.  The fix was simple: Since the
actual data starts with a number, the day part of the date, I changed the
code to simply throw away any lines that do not begin with a number.