In JakeVestal/InteractiveTradeR: API

knitr::opts_chunk$set(
  collapse = TRUE,
  comment = "#>"
)

Load up InteractiveTradeR

library(InteractiveTradeR)

A Word on Connection Parameters

When you first load InteractiveTradeR, you'll be asked if you want to store some default connection parameters. It is recommended that you do so; this will create a ".Rprofile" file (or will add to the existing one, if there is one) in your RStudio project home directory. .Rpofile contains the port numbers, hostname, etc that InteractiveTradeR will use to connect to the API.

If you prefer, you can configure these yourself on a session-by-session basis. The parameters are stored as R options and can be set like this:

options(interactivetrader.platform         = "TWS")
options(interactivetrader.paper            = TRUE)
options(interactivetrader.tws.paper.host   = "localhost")
options(interactivetrader.tws.paper.port   = 7497)
options(interactivetrader.tws.paper.master = 57869)

Note that if you're connecting to a LIVE (non-paper) IB account without permission, you're violating the licence agreement!

Open your Connections Window in TWS/IBG

This vignette is a lot more informative if you pull up the "Connections" window in TWS/IBG alongside RStudio as you run the examples yourself. In IB Gateway, the connections info is displayed in the default GUI; in TWS, you can find it by clicking on the "DATA" text in the upper right-hand corner of the window. Keeping an eye on the API connections will help you understand how InteractiveTradeR communicates with the IB apps.

Sync Mode

If you're just interested in running a script or pinging IB for info every now and then, you don't really need to worry about Async Mode and can just stick to the "there-and-back-again" Sync Mode, which is the default for all InteractiveTradeR functions that communicate with IB.

For example, if you call \link{req_current_time}() on its own, it'll open up a socket, ask IB for the time, get the response, and then close the socket behind itself when it's finished.

# Sync Mode:
req_current_time()

If you're following along in the Connections window of IBG/TWS, you should note that a new connection was briefly created, then closed as you ran the above.

Async Mode

Sync Mode is convenient and simple, but if you're building a Shiny app, dashboard, or an online trading program, you're going to need the ability to create subscriptions to data feeds like open orders, account balances, P/L, and so on. These values update asynchronously; for example, if you've placed an active limit order, there is no way for you to be sure when/if the order fills.

All InteractiveTradeR functions that communicate with IB can also be used in Async Mode, in which you create a persistant socket object that is not opened & closed each time a function executes. \link{req_current_time}(), for example, can be called in Async Mode as follows:

# Async Mode:
create_new_connections()             #1. Create a new sock
#socks()                              #2. View your socks (optional, of course)
req_current_time(channel = "async")  #3. Use sock to req_current_time()
disconnect()                         #4. Close the sock when you're finished.