[APP][UPDATED Oct 9 2008] XChange R8 currency convertor

Hi guys,

I must admit that I didn’t write software for a few years, and this is my first attempt after a long break – so please be gentle…

Xchange R8 is a simple currency convertor. You can choose 3 currencies to be displayed and for the time being you have two WebServices available: Bank of Romania (for my Romanian friends) and Bank of England (for my other friends). Bank of England currency are accessed via the Export Technologies WebService.

You need of course an Internet connection.

For Bank of Romania you can choose to see the currencies as they were at a certain date. Before you ask, chosing a date in the future will alas not work. The Export Technologies service does not have this function though, and when working with the Bank of England this choice will be unavailable.

The program remembers the last downloaded values for each service.

Please note that the Export Technologies service (for Bank of England) is slow – an update can take up to a minute. There’s nothing I can do about that.

I wrote this program initially for myself, as I often needed to know the currency rates and this is much faster than navigating from the browser. Then I saw somebody on this forum asking about such a program. While I’m sure better solutions can be found, I had a lot of fun writing this. Besides, it’s free!

I’m totally willing to add other WebServices to the list if you can provide me with their address.

Please note that I can only work on this during weekends: I have a company to run and it takes almost all my time.

Another note: .NET 3.5 framework is required.

UPDATE: v 1.1:

• Added Bank of Hungary web service
• Corrected a bug in the calendar: when first opened it always went to a day in July. Now it defaults to today.

Notes: Bank of Hungary does not update the service daily. Therefore, after you press Download, you may see a different date than today appearing at the top: this is the date of the last update. Furthermore, because of this, when you use the calendar to choose a date, you may get the message "No data available for the chosen date!". Simply choose another date. Hint: they don't update during weekends.

UPDATE 21/08/08 v 1.2

• Added Invert function for those who prefer to see the exchange course mirrored. For example, if before you saw 1 GBP = 2 USD, after Invert you'll see 1 USD = 0.5 GBP.
• Added calculator. For pic see next post.

UPDATE Oct 9 2008 v 2.0

• You can now convert from EUR to USD and actually whatever you want from a list of 150 currencies. Choose Webservicex from Options -> Currencies.
• Please note that this service is updating all the time, so values taken at a few minutes apart can vary slightly. This may actually be a good thing if you want to feel the pulse of the market in these stressed times.
• One problem with Webservicex (affecting only Romanians as far as I can tell): it only contains the old currency (ROL) and it always returns zero. I don't see this as real trouble, as you can always use the Bank of Romania service.

Pic for the calculator:

tampiss said:

looking gr8
would you add the CZK (www.cnb.cz) for Czech friends too?

http://www.cnb.cz/cs/financni_trhy/devizovy_trh/kurzy_devizoveho_trhu/denni_kurz.jsp

tampiss

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I definitely would. However, I need what is called a WebService, like http://www.exporttechnologies.com/webservices/currencyservice/currencyservice.asmx?WSDL.

That is usually an XML file defining the access to the service. A site simply giving a list of currencies is not a web service.

I looked at the Czech National Bank site (the english version) and could not find any link to a service. Perhaps you can help me there?

tnyynt said:

Magyar Nemzeti Bank aka National Bank of Hungary: http://www.mnb.hu/engine.aspx?page=mnbhu_webservice

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Got it. The description is at http://www.mnb.hu/arfolyamok.asmx?WSDL

I'll implement it as soon as I can. With a little bit of luck I'll have it tomorrow.

UPDATE: Done! Please look at the first post of this thread to download.

saintman2 said:

http://www.cbr.ru/DailyInfoWebServ/DailyInfo.asmx?op=GetCursOnDateXML

Russian CBR. Is it OK? Or you need smth. else?

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This is perfect. I'll add it soon.

don05 said:

http://www.cnb.cz/en/financial_mark...rket/exchange_rate_fixing/FORMAT_KURZY_EN.HTM

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Sorry, unless I'm very wrong this is just a method to set the date (and info) on their site. I can't use this to retrieve the data in the application.

A webservice link always ends with WSDL.

This can tell you if I can use it or not. By the way, WSDL = Web Services Description Language, in case you wondered