Bob,
<<Except for splits, all updates are weekly.
The same sort of thing was done by many of us for SCharts when the Access db was
overwritten weekly and also for the Prodigy FA db.
Seems to me that you could point the QP API at weekly snapshots.
Split data doesn't need to be incrementally saved because the full history is, of course,
always available>>
The splits history (which in QP is not always full, nor up to date)
is OK for READING. But, I wouldn't want to involve its tangle
in any scan I write, even if QP2 gave me access to it.
What about other changes in totalshares outstanding like
secondaries, or share buybacks, or stock dividends. Theses changes
in total shares materially affect several variables.
Putting the correctness of variable treatment aside, what I find
extremely valuable, is the total flexibility and speed I get from being able to use a programming language rather than the QP scan
for analysis. Also, I feel by using a snapshot of the QP database,
for any past time frame, I am, per se, dealing with data as it
would have appeared to any QP2 scan done on that day in the past.
The matter of speed is not merely one of convenience. Working to
find a better way to do formula weightings for many variables
is practical if an iteration over 6000 stocks takes 5 seconds.
If it takes 10 minutes to modify a scan, do it, and then deal
with eyeballing the rough output, that is an inhibiting factor
to say the least.
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