Order IDs In Interactive Brokers API

[Oliver West]

I’m having a bit of an issue with order IDs using the C++ API. nextValidId() is called when you connect giving you the order ID to use for your first order. When I send an order I call reqIds() so as to make an new order ID available for my next order. This works fine if orders aren’t sent in quick succession but problems can arise if you want to send a new order before nextValidId() has been called with the next order ID.

The obvious solution would be to request a number of IDs and put them in a queue so you would always have IDs on hand ready for the next order. Unfortunately though no matter what value you pass to reqIds() it only ever results in one call to nextValidId() and thus only one ID being sent.

As nextValidId() is called from the same thread you can’t simply suspend execution until nextValidId() has been called and the new ID received. The only solution I can see would be to put the API code in its own thread and when suspend the main thread when a new ID is not available until nextValidId() has been called in the API thread with the next ID to use. However that’s an absurd solution to deal with something as simple as generating a unique order ID and there must be an easier way. IB’s client2 project provides no answers sine it just gets the order ID from the value entered in the dialog box so I’m unsure how this issue should be handled.

Do IB have a recommended way of handling this situation? If not, how did other people manage the issue?

Thanks for the help

 

[mikesmithv]

You question has been covered in depth on the IB technical BBS at:

http://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/general/education/discussionForum.php

Log in and choose TWS API, then search for "orderID".

The short answer is to keep a "global" orderID variable that you get once at startup an increment yourself whenever you create a new order. It must be global in that it must be accessible by all the threads that create orders.

 

[Wayne Gibbous]

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[mikesmithv]

Bragging about the size of your orderID??? That's a new one!

 

[Wayne Gibbous]

lol

 

[Oliver West]

Thanks for the reply. I didn’t know Interactive Brokers had a forum so that’s useful to know about. I also hadn’t realised that each client had its own set of orderIDs so that order 1 in client 0 would be different to order 1 from client 1. I therefore thought that incrementing it yourself would create problems as it would more than likely result in two clients using the same order ID, but I now know this isn’t an issue.

That forum is really good to know about. There were a few other things I wasn’t sure about such as whether to use eTradeOnly and firmQuoteOnly but they all seem to be answered in that forum.

Thanks again for the help.