How to draw a chart from a CSV-file in MQL4?

Question

I'm new to MQL and MetaTrader 4,
but I want to read a .CSV-file and draw the values I've got into the chart of the Expert Advisor I'm working on.

Every .CSV file has the form of:

;EURUSD;1
DATE;TIME;HIGH;LOW;CLOSE;OPEN;VOLUME
2014.06.11;19:11:00;1.35272;1.35271;1.35271;1.35272;4
2014.06.11;19:14:00;1.35287;1.35282;1.35284;1.35283;30

Where the EURUSD part is the _Symbol, which another program generated, the 1 is the period, and all the other things are the data to draw.

Is there any form to do it inside an Expert Advisor, or do I need to use a Custom Indicator?

If that's the case, how can I do it in the simplest way?

_{P.S.: I read the data in a struct:}

struct entry
{
  string date;
  string time;
  double high;
  double low;
  double close;
  double open;
  int volume;
};

Answer 1

There are three principally different approaches available in MT4

First,
one may
reshuffle data-cells into a compatible format T,O,H,L,C,V and
import records using F2 History Center [Import] facility of the MetaTrader Terminal. One may create one's own Symbol-name so as to avoid name-colliding cases in the History Center database.

This way, one lets MT4 to create system-level illustrations of the TOHLCV-data, using the platform's underlying graphical engine.

---

Second,
_{one may ignore the underlying graphical engine and
work on a user-controlled GUI-overlay
so as to}
implement an algorithm to read a CSV file and
create a set of MQL4 GUI-objects algorithmically, based on the data contained in the said CSV file. An experience based decision whether to use an { ExpertAdvisor | CustomIndicator } would yield to use a Script for this purpose, due to it's one-shot processing.
One shall realise, MT4 code-execution ecosystem does a specific context-binding between an MQL4-code ( which is being run ) and an MT4.Graph which does not allow a code launched on a GBPJPY MT4.Graph to process directly objects, related with FTSE.100 MT4.Graph. Yes, if asked to, one may implement a few add-ons and develop a sofisticated distributed processing model to make this work "accross" the said context-binding borders.

---

Third,
_{and for some cases the most interesting way is a file based approach, where}
one may
pre-process CSV data in a similar way as in second option but not inside a live-MT4 process, but "beforehand" and
generate one's own Profile file, keeping an MT4 convention of placing & content of
- ~/profiles/<aProfileNAME>/chart01.chr
- ~/profiles/<aProfileNAME>/order.wnd
-~/profiles/lastprofile.ini, referring <aProfileNAME> on it's first row

This way, once the MT4 session starts, the pre-fabricated files are pilot-tape auto-loaded and displayed as one wishes to, Q.E.D.

A .chr file syntax sample:

<chart>
id=130394787628125000
comment=msLIB.TERMINAL: _______________2013.04.15 08:00:00 |cpuClockTIXs = 448765484 |
symbol=EURCHF
period=60
leftpos=6188
digits=4
scale=4
graph=1
fore=0
grid=0
volume=1
scroll=0
shift=1
ohlc=1
...

<window>
height=100
fixed_height=0

<indicator>
name=main

<object>
type=10
object_name=Fibo 16762
...

<object>
type=16
object_name=msLIB.RectangleOnEVENT
period_flags=0
create_time=1348596865
color=25600
style=0
weight=1
background=0
filling=0
selectable=1
hidden=0
zorder=0
time_0=1348592400
value_0=1.213992
time_1=1348624800
value_1=1.209486
ray=0
</object>
...

<object>
type=17
object_name=msLIB.TriangleMarker
period_flags=0
create_time=1348064992
color=17919
style=2
weight=1
background=0
filling=0
selectable=1
hidden=0
zorder=0
time_0=1348052400
value_0=1.213026
time_1=1348070400
value_1=1.213026
time_2=1348070400
value_2=1.210476
</object>