CS 21: Lab 08

Run update21, if you haven't already, to create the cs21/labs/08 directory. Then cd into your cs21/labs/08 directory and create the python program for lab 08 in this directory (handin21 looks for your lab 08 assignments in your cs21/labs/08 directory).

$ update21
$ cd cs21/labs/08
$ vim searchstocks.py

Introduction

This week's lab involves financial data for stocks. The file /usr/local/doc/nasdaq.data contains data from 11/4/2013 for most companies in the NASDAQ. The data was pulled from a free service provided by yahoo.com (YHOO). Here are the first few lines from nasdaq.data:

# Ticker,Name,Date,Open,High,Low,Close,Volume,Adj Close
AAME,Atlantic American Corporation,2013-11-04,4.04,4.05,4.01,4.05,5400,4.05
AAON,AAON  Inc.,2013-11-04,27.28,27.48,27.08,27.32,96300,27.32
AAPL,Apple Inc.,2013-11-04,521.10,526.82,518.81,526.75,8716100,526.75
AAWW,Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings,2013-11-04,38.65,39.48,38.65,38.93,490500,38.93

The very first line is a comment, explaining what information (Ticker,Name,Date,etc) is in the file. After that, each line contains data for a separate company. The lines in the file are in alphabetical order based on the ticker symbol.

Our program this week will read in the data for all companies listed in the file and allow the user to explore this dataset. You will implement a simple text-based menu system that allows the user to search through the data for certain items: ticker symbol, company name, or any company with a stock price (at the Close) greater than a user-chosen value.

Here's a quick example of some of the program's capabilities:

$ python searchstocks.py 

NASDAQ Stock Data for 2013-11-04

ticker(1),company(2),close(3),quit(4): 1
                           search for: goog
==================================================
ticker search for GOOG

  Ticker: GOOG
    Name: Google Inc.
    Open: $1031.50
   Close: $1026.11
  Volume: 1138800
  
==================================================
ticker(1),company(2),close(3),quit(4): 2
                           search for: computer
==================================================
company search for computer
  CCUR: Concurrent Computer Corporation
  CPSI: Computer Programs and Systems  Inc.
  SMCI: Super Micro Computer  Inc.
==================================================
ticker(1),company(2),close(3),quit(4): 1
                           search for: cpsi
==================================================
ticker search for CPSI

  Ticker: CPSI
    Name: Computer Programs and Systems  Inc.
    Open: $60.03
   Close: $60.42
  Volume: 67800
  
==================================================
ticker(1),company(2),close(3),quit(4): 3
                           search for: 300
==================================================
search for close > $300.00
  AAPL: $ 526.75  
  AMZN: $ 358.74  
  GOOG: $1026.11  
 HBANP: $1265.50  
  ISRG: $ 382.23  
  NFLX: $ 337.60  
  PCLN: $1070.57  
==================================================
ticker(1),company(2),close(3),quit(4): 1
                           search for: nflx
==================================================
ticker search for NFLX

  Ticker: NFLX
    Name: Netflix  Inc.
    Open: $330.95
   Close: $337.60
  Volume: 3131300
  
==================================================
ticker(1),company(2),close(3),quit(4): 4

Bye!

In the above example the user can search for one of three things:

a specific ticker symbol
any company with the user-supplied string in the company name (e.g., computer)
any company with a closing stock price greater than some value (e.g., $300)

NOTE: in the above three searches, one can be done with a binary search algorithm (and should be!)

Requirements and tips

Here are the specifications for this program and a few helpful "tips". Make sure your program meets all of these specifications.

You should use top-down design for this program! Design you main() and any helper functions. Implement the program one function at a time. A good program design and use of functions is part of the grade...
read in the data for all companies and store all of the data in a list-of-lists, like this:
```
[[data for company 1], [data for company 2], [data for company 3], ...]
```
the data for each company should be stored in the correct format. For example, the ticker symbol should be a string, but the closing stock price should be a float. Here's an example of one of the above inner lists for each company:
```
[Ticker,Name,Date,Open,High,Low,Close,Volume,AdjClose]
```
Here's a real example for one of the companies:
```
['III', 'Information Services Group  Inc.', '2013-11-04', 4.39, 4.39, 4.2, 4.28, 150800, 4.28]
```
present the user with a menu of options:
- 1 to search for a specific ticker symbol
- 2 to search through company names for a string (list all companies found)
- 3 to search for (and list) all companies with a closing stock price greater than some value
- 4 to quit

you can use the str method split() to split any string on any delimiter string:

>>> S = "wePONYlovePONYcomputerPONYscience!!"
>>> S.split("PONY")
['we', 'love', 'computer', 'science!!']

For the company search, any company name that contains the search string, anywhere in the company name, is considered a match (ex: searching for "goo" should find "Google"). The built-in python in operator is good for this...
all input from the user should be checked/handled. For example, if they enter an invalid menu choice, or text when asked for the closing price, etc.

Below are some longer examples. Look them over and make sure you handle all cases shown (e.g, ticker symbol not found, invalid menu choice, etc).

Submit

Once you are satisfied with your program, hand it in by typing handin21 in a terminal window.

CS21 Lab 8: searching through stock data