Quickstart: R

A five-minute tour of the Wickra R binding — a .Call stecker on the C ABI hub. By the end you will have streamed an RSI, run a batch SMA, and read a multi-output MACD, all from idiomatic R.

Install

The package compiles a thin .Call glue layer against the prebuilt Wickra C ABI library, so a C toolchain (Rtools on Windows) is required, plus the C ABI header and library. Build the library from the workspace, then install the package pointing at it:

bash

cargo build -p wickra-c --release
WICKRA_INCLUDE_DIR="$PWD/bindings/c/include" \
WICKRA_LIB_DIR="$PWD/target/release" \
R CMD INSTALL bindings/r

On Windows the C ABI DLL is bundled into the package and put on the load path automatically; on Linux and macOS the library path is baked in via rpath.

The object shape

Every indicator is a constructor returning a wickra_indicator object over an opaque native handle, with the same operations as the C ABI underneath:

library(wickra)

sma <- Sma(14)        # stops with an error on invalid params
v <- update(sma, 42)  # NA while warming up
reset(sma)            # back to a fresh state
# the native handle is freed automatically when `sma` is garbage-collected

update() is O(1) per call. Handles are released by a registered finalizer, so there is nothing to free by hand.

Streaming and batch side by side

library(wickra)

# 1. Streaming: feed Wilder's textbook example into RSI(14).
rsi <- Rsi(14)
prices <- c(
  44.34, 44.09, 44.15, 43.61, 44.33, 44.83, 45.10, 45.42,
  45.84, 46.08, 45.89, 46.03, 45.61, 46.28, 46.28, 46.00
)
for (i in seq_along(prices)) {
  r <- update(rsi, prices[i])
  if (!is.na(r)) {           # NA during the 15-bar warmup
    cat(sprintf("tick %2d  rsi=%.4f\n", i, r))
  }
}

# 2. Batch: one SMA(3) call over five prices writes NA at warmup.
batch(Sma(3), c(1, 2, 3, 4, 5))
# -> NA NA 2 3 4

The first RSI value lands on tick 15. Batch output is bit-for-bit identical to feeding the same inputs through update() one at a time.

Multi-output indicators

Indicators with several outputs (MACD, Bollinger, ADX, …) return a named numeric vector — NA while warming up, real values once one is ready:

macd <- MacdIndicator(12, 26, 9)
for (price in feed) {
  m <- update(macd, price)
  if (!is.na(m[["macd"]])) {
    cat(sprintf("macd=%.4f signal=%.4f hist=%.4f\n",
                m[["macd"]], m[["signal"]], m[["histogram"]]))
  }
}

Candle-input indicators (ATR, ADX, OBV, …) take the OHLCV fields plus a timestamp, e.g. update(atr, open, high, low, close, volume, timestamp). Bar builders return a matrix of completed bars; profile indicators return a list.

A deeper example

examples/r/backtest.R runs a basket of indicators over an OHLCV series; the examples/r/ directory also has a multi-indicator streaming demo, multi-timeframe resampling, an mclapply fan-out, three strategy examples, and Binance fetch/live examples. Build and install once, then run any of them:

bash

cargo build -p wickra-c --release
WICKRA_INCLUDE_DIR="$PWD/bindings/c/include" WICKRA_LIB_DIR="$PWD/target/release" \
  R CMD INSTALL bindings/r
cd examples/r && Rscript streaming.R

Quickstart: R ​

Install ​

The object shape ​

Streaming and batch side by side ​

Multi-output indicators ​

A deeper example ​

See also ​