Readme for Finance::StockTrade Stock Information with Perl Copyright (c) 1998-99, Jeremy D. Zawodny BACKGROUND This is the README file for Finance::StockTrade. The Finance::StockTrade home page is located at: http://www.wcnet.org/~jzawodn/perl/Finance-StockTrade/ There may be bugs in the code as well as in the documentation. If you find either, I'd appreciate a patch or at least a mail message to let me know what's wrong. Finacce::StockTrade has been developed and tested on Linux and the Win32 platform. It should work on other platforms, provided that Perl5 and the LWP modules are available. If you install it on another platform, I'd like to hear about it. If you develop patches for that platform, I'd REALLY like to hear about it. Send me a note. There's nothing that I know to be platform-dependent in here yet, but you never know. VERSIONS The numbering of Finance::StockTrade is based completely on the revision number that RCS assigns to the StockTrade.pm file. This means that it is unlike traditional Perl modules (they normally start with version 0.1). As a result, some releases may contain updates to some modules but not others. I will do my best to release them in a sensible manner. If you're in doubt, always check the ChangeLog file in the distribution to see what's new. REQUIREMENTS The following stuff is required to make this really work: * SSLeay-0.6.6b from ftp.psy.uq.oz.au * Crypt::SSLeay from CPAN * The LWP bundle from CPAN * The IO bundle from CPAN I highly suggest that you acquaint yourself with the use of the CPAN shell to make installing the necessary libraries easy. Once you get it working the first time, it is very easy to upgrade any of the modules to newer versions. (Try `man CPAN' on a Unix box for details.) INSTALLATION Installing Finance::StockTrade is an easy process. % perl Makefile.PL % make % make test % make install DOCUMENTATION The documentation is included in the distribution in POD format. When you ran the 'make install' above, documentation should have been installed on your system such that 'perldoc Finance::StockTrade' will spit something out. Of course, you can run your favorite POD converter and generate it in alternative formats. (`man perlpod' for details.) There is additional documentation [in the form of a manual] available in HTML and PostScript format, also. You will find it in the `manual' sub-directory of the distribution. It may be more useful than just reading the manual page for each of the modules and trying to figure out the big-picture stuff. EXAMPLES The following scripts are included in the `examples' directory. They are provided as examples only. Each example contains the necessary documentation (either in the form of POD code, or just as comments or command-line help). There may or may not also be a README file in the `examples' directory that contains some helpful information. What you do with the examples is your business. t.pl A simple test script for the generic broker and the trader. TOOLS There is a bunch of stuff in the `tools' directory. It is mainly of interest to those developing Traders or Brokers. There are some things there for reverse-engineering sites so that you can write a Broker for them, too. Like the examples (see above section), the documentation is embedded in each of the files. There may or may not also be a README file that contains some helpful information. WISHLIST If you're wondering what will come next in Finance::StockTrade, see the Wishlist file in the distribution directory. ANNOUNCEMENT MAILING LIST If you'd like to be informed of new releases automatically, send me an e-mail message. I will add you to the list of folks who are notified automatically every time a new version is released. DEVELOPMENT MAILING LIST There currently is no development mailing list, because I only know of one other person working on this code. However, if several people become interested in helping, I will create a list so that we can all share code and ideas. $Id: README,v 1.6 1999/01/06 01:29:03 jzawodn Exp $