Ubuntu Manpage: Finance::Quote - Get stock and mutual fund quotes from various exchanges

Provided by: libfinance-quote-perl_1.18-2_all

NAME

       Finance::Quote - Get stock and mutual fund quotes from various exchanges

SYNOPSIS

          use Finance::Quote;
          $q = Finance::Quote->new;

          $q->timeout(60);

          $conversion_rate = $q->currency("AUD","USD");
          $q->set_currency("EUR");  # Return all info in Euros.

          $q->require_labels(qw/price date high low volume/);

          $q->failover(1); # Set failover support (on by default).

          %quotes  = $q->fetch("nasdaq",@stocks);
          $hashref = $q->fetch("nyse",@stocks);

DESCRIPTION

This module gets stock quotes from various internet sources, including Yahoo! Finance,
Fidelity Investments, and the Australian Stock Exchange. There are two methods of using
this module -- a functional interface that is deprecated, and an object-orientated method
that provides greater flexibility and stability.

With the exception of straight currency exchange rates, all information is returned as a
two-dimensional hash (or a reference to such a hash, if called in a scalar context). For
example:

%info = $q->fetch("australia","CML");
print "The price of CML is ".$info{"CML","price"};

The first part of the hash (eg, "CML") is referred to as the stock. The second part (in
this case, "price") is referred to as the label.

LABELS
When information about a stock is returned, the following standard labels may be used.
Some custom-written modules may use labels not mentioned here. If you wish to be certain
that you obtain a certain set of labels for a given stock, you can specify that using
require_labels().

name Company or Mutual Fund Name
last Last Price
high Highest trade today
low Lowest trade today
date Last Trade Date (MM/DD/YY format)
time Last Trade Time
net Net Change
p_change Percent Change from previous day's close
volume Volume
avg_vol Average Daily Vol
bid Bid
ask Ask
close Previous Close
open Today's Open
day_range Day's Range
year_range 52-Week Range
eps Earnings per Share
pe P/E Ratio
div_date Dividend Pay Date
div Dividend per Share
div_yield Dividend Yield
cap Market Capitalization
ex_div Ex-Dividend Date.
nav Net Asset Value
yield Yield (usually 30 day avg)
exchange The exchange the information was obtained from.
success Did the stock successfully return information? (true/false)
errormsg If success is false, this field may contain the reason why.
method The module (as could be passed to fetch) which found
this information.

If all stock lookups fail (possibly because of a failed connection) then the empty list
may be returned, or undef in a scalar context.

AVAILABLE METHODS

   NEW
           my $q = Finance::Quote->new;
           my $q = Finance::Quote->new("ASX");
           my $q = Finance::Quote->new("-defaults", "CustomModule");

       With no arguents, this creates a new Finance::Quote object with the default methods.  If
       the environment variable FQ_LOAD_QUOTELET is set, then the contents of FQ_LOAD_QUOTELET
       (split on whitespace) will be used as the argument list.  This allows users to load their
       own custom modules without having to change existing code.  If you do not want users to be
       able to load their own modules at run-time, pass an explicit argumetn to ->new() (usually
       "-defaults").

       When new() is passed one or more arguments, an object is created with only the specified
       modules loaded.  If the first argument is "-defaults", then the default modules will be
       loaded first, followed by any other specified modules.

       Note that the FQ_LOAD_QUOTELET environment variable must begin with "-defaults" if you
       wish the default modules to be loaded.

       Any modules specified will automatically be looked for in the Finance::Quote:: module-
       space.  Hence, Finance::Quote->new("ASX") will load the module Finance::Quote::ASX.

       Please read the Finance::Quote hacker's guide for information on how to create new modules
       for Finance::Quote.

   FETCH
           my %stocks  = $q->fetch("usa","IBM","MSFT","LNUX");
           my $hashref = $q->fetch("usa","IBM","MSFT","LNUX");

       Fetch takes an exchange as its first argument.  The second and remaining arguments are
       treated as stock-names.  In the standard Finance::Quote distribution, the following
       exchanges are recognised:

           australia   Australan Stock Exchange
           dwsfunds    Deutsche Bank Gruppe funds
           fidelity    Fidelity Investments
           tiaacref    TIAA-CREF
           troweprice    T. Rowe Price
           europe    European Markets
           canada    Canadian Markets
           usa     USA Markets
           nyse    New York Stock Exchange
           nasdaq    NASDAQ
           uk_unit_trusts  UK Unit Trusts
           vanguard    Vanguard Investments
           vwd     Vereinigte Wirtschaftsdienste GmbH

       When called in an array context, a hash is returned.  In a scalar context, a reference to
       a hash will be returned.  The structure of this hash is described earlier in this
       document.

       The fetch method automatically arranges for failover support and currency conversion if
       requested.

       If you wish to fetch information from only one particular source, then consult the
       documentation of that sub-module for further information.

   SOURCES
           my @sources = $q->sources;
           my $listref = $q->sources;

       The sources method returns a list of sources that have currently been loaded and can be
       passed to the fetch method.  If you're providing a user with a list of sources to choose
       from, then it is recommended that you use this method.

   CURRENCY_LOOKUP
           $currencies_by_name = $q->currency_lookup( name => 'Australian' );
           $currencies_by_code = $q->currency_lookup( code => qr/^b/i      );
           $currencies_by_both = $q->currency_lookup( name => qr/pound/i
                                                    , code => 'GB'         );

       The currency_lookup method provides a search against the known currencies. The list of
       currencies is based on the available currencies in the Yahoo Currency Converter (the list
       is stored within the module as the list should be fairly static).

       The lookup can be done by currency name (ie "Australian Dollar"), by code (ie "AUD") or
       both. You can pass either a scalar or regular expression as a search value - scalar values
       are matched by substring while regular expressions are matched as-is (no changes are made
       to the expression).

       See Finance::Quote::Currencies::fetch_live_currencies (and the "t/currencies.t" test file)
       for a way to make sure that the stored currency list is up to date.

   CURRENCY
           $conversion_rate = $q->currency("USD","AUD");

       The currency method takes two arguments, and returns a conversion rate that can be used to
       convert from the first currency into the second.  In the example above, we've requested
       the factor that would convert US dollars into Australian dollars.

       The currency method will return a false value if a given currency conversion cannot be
       fetched.

       At the moment, currency rates are fetched from Yahoo!, and the information returned is
       governed by Yahoo!'s terms and conditions.  See Finance::Quote::Yahoo for more
       information.

   SET_CURRENCY
           $q->set_currency("FRF");  # Get results in French Francs.

       The set_currency method can be used to request that all information be returned in the
       specified currency.  Note that this increases the chance stock-lookup failure, as remote
       requests must be made to fetch both the stock information and the currency rates.  In
       order to improve reliability and speed performance, currency conversion rates are cached
       and are assumed not to change for the duration of the Finance::Quote object.

       At this time, currency conversions are only looked up using Yahoo!'s services, and hence
       information obtained with automatic currency conversion is bound by Yahoo!'s terms and
       conditions.

   FAILOVER
           $q->failover(1);  # Set automatic failover support.
           $q->failover(0);  # Disable failover support.

       The failover method takes a single argument which either sets (if true) or unsets (if
       false) automatic failover support.  If automatic failover support is enabled (default)
       then multiple information sources will be tried if one or more sources fail to return the
       requested information.  Failover support will significantly increase the time spent
       looking for a non-existant stock.

       If the failover method is called with no arguments, or with an undefined argument, it will
       return the current failover state (true/false).

   USER_AGENT
           my $ua = $q->user_agent;

       The user_agent method returns the LWP::UserAgent object that Finance::Quote and its
       helpers use.  Normally this would not be useful to an application, however it is possible
       to modify the user-agent directly using this method:

           $q->user_agent->timeout(10);  # Set the timeout directly.

   SCALE_FIELD
           my $pounds = $q->scale_field($item_in_pence,0.01);

       The scale_field() function is a helper that can scale complex fields such as ranges (eg,
       "102.5 - 103.8") and other fields where the numbers should be scaled but any surrounding
       text preserved.  It's most useful in writing new Finance::Quote modules where you may
       retrieve information in a non-ISO4217 unit (such as cents) and would like to scale it to a
       more useful unit (like dollars).

   ISOTIME
           $q->isoTime("11:39PM");    # returns "23:39"
           $q->isoTime("9:10 AM");    # returns "09:10"

       This function will return a isoformatted time

ENVIRONMENT

       Finance::Quote respects all environment that your installed version of LWP::UserAgent
       respects.  Most importantly, it respects the http_proxy environment variable.

BUGS

       There are no ways for a user to define a failover list.

       The two-dimensional hash is a somewhat unwieldly method of passing around information when
       compared to references.  A future release is planned that will allow for information to be
       returned in a more flexible $hash{$stock}{$label} style format.

       There is no way to override the default behaviour to cache currency conversion rates.

COPYRIGHT & LICENSE

        Copyright 1998, Dj Padzensky
        Copyright 1998, 1999 Linas Vepstas
        Copyright 2000, Yannick LE NY (update for Yahoo Europe and YahooQuote)
        Copyright 2000-2001, Paul Fenwick (updates for ASX, maintainence and release)
        Copyright 2000-2001, Brent Neal (update for TIAA-CREF)
        Copyright 2000 Volker Stuerzl (DWS and VWD support)
        Copyright 2000 Keith Refson (Trustnet support)
        Copyright 2001 Rob Sessink (AEX support)
        Copyright 2001 Leigh Wedding (ASX updates)
        Copyright 2001 Tobias Vancura (Fool support)
        Copyright 2001 James Treacy (TD Waterhouse support)
        Copyright 2008 Erik Colson (isoTime)

       This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of
       the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either
       version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

       Currency information fetched through this module is bound by Yahoo!'s terms and conditons.

       Other copyrights and conditions may apply to data fetched through this module.  Please
       refer to the sub-modules for further information.

AUTHORS

         Dj Padzensky <djpadz@padz.net>, PadzNet, Inc.
         Linas Vepstas <linas@linas.org>
         Yannick LE NY <y-le-ny@ifrance.com>
         Paul Fenwick <pjf@cpan.org>
         Brent Neal <brentn@users.sourceforge.net>
         Volker Stuerzl <volker.stuerzl@gmx.de>
         Keith Refson <Keith.Refson#earth.ox.ac.uk>
         Rob Sessink <rob_ses@users.sourceforge.net>
         Leigh Wedding <leigh.wedding@telstra.com>
         Tobias Vancura <tvancura@altavista.net>
         James Treacy <treacy@debian.org>
         Bradley Dean <bjdean@bjdean.id.au>
         Erik Colson <eco@ecocode.net>

       The Finance::Quote home page can be found at http://finance-quote.sourceforge.net/

       The Finance::YahooQuote home page can be found at http://www.padz.net/~djpadz/YahooQuote/

       The GnuCash home page can be found at http://www.gnucash.org/