I wrote this program, but i have a feeling like there might be a more practical way of writing it. Can someone give me an idea of how to simplify this? Here is an example of the csv file i am using. This program calculates the exponential moving average of the 20 day range.
USOtable.csv (full table found at http://ichart.finance.yahoo.com/table.csv?s=USO) Date,Open,High,Low,Close,Volume,Adj Close 2010-01-15,38.97,39.02,38.28,38.40,12615300,38.40 2010-01-14,39.30,39.44,38.88,39.06,8575900,39.06 2010-01-13,39.40,39.71,38.63,39.21,15502700,39.21 2010-01-12,40.07,40.36,39.53,39.63,11960100,39.63 2010-01-11,41.09,41.19,40.46,40.54,8902200,40.54 2010-01-08,40.63,41.17,40.45,40.93,9393500,40.93 2010-01-07,40.87,41.08,40.68,40.72,10012000,40.72 2010-01-06,40.32,41.19,39.89,40.97,19789800,40.97 2010-01-05,40.25,40.45,39.93,40.41,10450200,40.41 test.py import csv reader = open('/prog/USOtable.csv','rb') data = [row for row in csv.reader(reader)] Nvals= [1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1] H=float(data[40][2])+float(data[41][2])+float(data[42][2])+float(data [43][2])\ +float(data[44][2])+float(data[45][2])+float(data[46][2])+float(data [47][2])\ +float(data[48][2])+float(data[49][2])+float(data[50][2])+float(data [51][2])\ +float(data[52][2])+float(data[53][2])+float(data[54][2])+float(data [55][2])\ +float(data[56][2])+float(data[57][2])+float(data[58][2])+float(data [59][2])\ +float(data[60][2]) L=float(data[40][3])+float(data[41][3])+float(data[42][3])+float(data [43][3])\ +float(data[44][3])+float(data[45][3])+float(data[46][3])+float(data [47][3])\ +float(data[48][3])+float(data[49][3])+float(data[50][3])+float(data [51][3])\ +float(data[52][3])+float(data[53][3])+float(data[54][3])+float(data [55][3])\ +float(data[56][3])+float(data[57][3])+float(data[58][3])+float(data [59][3])\ +float(data[60][3]) Nvals[39]=(H-L)/2 i=1 while i <=38: high=float(data[39-i][2]) low=float(data[39-i][3]) TR=high-low Nvals[39-i]=(19*Nvals[40-i]+TR)/20 i+=1 for value in Nvals: print value -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list