How efficient is Thinkscript code?

Thane313

New member
I was looking into volume labels for my watcher charts which are pretty small since I have one old 55" screen to work with. Saw in one script that they calculated the daily average volume for 30 days by summing each day individually, / by 30. Versus getting 4 weekly values, or one month. Perhaps this is a bad example if monthly and weekly values refer to real weeks and months. But ignoring that for the sake of argument, it wouldn't be worth considering at all if Thinkorswim is programmed to check on whether or not each value is going to change again. The daily volume values from the past aren't going to change, so it wouldn't need to recheck for updates from the servers or locally. But does it? Every frame? If so, ouch.

Just curious: How about plots? After getting beyond the portion of the plot which is going to see additional changes, ToS "could" just store those finalized values. Does anyone know if it constantly recalculates the whole plot?
 
Solution
I was looking into volume labels for my watcher charts which are pretty small since I have one old 55" screen to work with. Saw in one script that they calculated the daily average volume for 30 days by summing each day individually, / by 30. Versus getting 4 weekly values, or one month. Perhaps this is a bad example if monthly and weekly values refer to real weeks and months. But ignoring that for the sake of argument, it wouldn't be worth considering at all if Thinkorswim is programmed to check on whether or not each value is going to change again. The daily volume values from the past aren't going to change, so it wouldn't need to recheck for updates from the servers or locally. But does it? Every frame? If so, ouch.

Just...
I was looking into volume labels for my watcher charts which are pretty small since I have one old 55" screen to work with. Saw in one script that they calculated the daily average volume for 30 days by summing each day individually, / by 30. Versus getting 4 weekly values, or one month. Perhaps this is a bad example if monthly and weekly values refer to real weeks and months. But ignoring that for the sake of argument, it wouldn't be worth considering at all if Thinkorswim is programmed to check on whether or not each value is going to change again. The daily volume values from the past aren't going to change, so it wouldn't need to recheck for updates from the servers or locally. But does it? Every frame? If so, ouch.

Just curious: How about plots? After getting beyond the portion of the plot which is going to see additional changes, ToS "could" just store those finalized values. Does anyone know if it constantly recalculates the whole plot?
The answer is that "it depends".

When using Range All functions, (highestall, inertiaall, etc...) The entire plot 'used to' recalculate on every tick.
Recently, TDA changed that:
https://usethinkscript.com/threads/...-range-lagging-issues-due-to-tos-update.8794/
Those functions now re-plot the entire line, once per bar.

For plots with static values, only the current bar is updated.
 
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Solution
I wonder if its advantageous to combine scripts that have elements that compute the same info or if TOS automatically tracks duplicate operations across indicators which i doubt but could be possible.
 
I wonder if its advantageous to combine scripts that have elements that compute the same info or if TOS automatically tracks duplicate operations across indicators which i doubt but could be possible.
The ToS platform performs whatever calculations are called for, for every line in the script, individually. If you use the same information multiple times in the same script or multiple scripts each line is individually resourced.

A common method members use to conserve resources within studies is to create holding variables:
price = close ;
h = high;
ema44 = expAverage(volume,44);
Creating variables for expressions such as above for elements that are used multiple times in a study, reduces how often ToS has to calculate these items.
 
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All bars within the largest forward offset present in the script will be reevaluated every tick.

This should help you visualize it:

Code:
input ForwardOffset = 25;
def x = random() * 10;
assignpriceColor(getcolor(x[-ForwardOffset]));

Run it on something that's trading though, like futures at the moment.

It wont function on closed markets.
 
Wow. Ouch. I guess in the future ....well after I figure out a strategy that gets to my $50/day monthly expense goal.... I will likely spend some time creating combined indicator sets if possible so all the computations for ATR and volume and relative strength etc can be done as few times as possible.
 
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