[ts-gen] Installation Issues

[Bill Pippin]

Dave,

About compilation:

> I was able to get the compilation to work ...

What was needed?  You are our first Suse user to talk to the
list, so I'm curious.

Now, as for the online help, you should ignore it and look at the
example scripts in the directory exs instead.  With respect to
help mode:

> I was able to get the compilation to work though now I have no --help
> option only --data and --risk.  Is the documentation out of date with
> the other options listed?

Yes, indeed.  Those reading the manual will encounter section 1.2,
Caveats:

http://www.trading-shim.org/doc/node5.html

This section comes before they reach substantive material about the
shim itself.  In particular, the first two sentences say:

    The trading-shim is currently under active development, as is the
    IB tws, so that documentation for the shim aims at a moving target.
    Please understand that this manual, as so the shim, is currently a
    work in progress.

The rest of that section should make it clear that the manual is very
much incomplete, as well as, having been and being, behind the shim as
currently implemented.
 
As for the help option, it no longer appears in the mode list for the
simple reason that it has been blocked out, to avoid misleading users:

    tsi$ ./shim

    Usage: shim <mode> [optional feature list]
    Modes:

                   # real modes, requiring access to an IB tws:
        --data     # process subscriptions and log resulting tick ...
        --risk     # accept full command set, send requests, and log ...

If you are determined to see what the online help produces, then
in addition to the other scripts in the exs directory, most of
which are potentially useful or at least meaningful, there is in
contrast a script help that runs the help command --- as opposed
to the mode of the same name --- and if you wish to see the
obsolete output of that command, you can run the script, say via:

    tsi$ exs/help --data 2>&1 | tee help.txt 
    ...
    tsi$ wc help.txt
      826  5402 36361 help.txt

At this point you will know that the commands in the help script do
indeed produce output, nearly 1k lines of it.  You should not, however
actually *read* it. ;<)  The text on orders is particularly dated.

Actually, the irony above aside, to the extent that the help command
explains the purpose of the various configuration parameters, it's
useful, and reasonably up-to-date.  Where it begins to fall down is
in the command syntax, after about one third of the way through the
tee output saved above.  Even there, the material on the downstream
control language is useful to explain the motivation behind the
various commands.  Just be sure to ignore the syntax, and check the
examples in the exs directory.

Thanks,

Bill