symbol info string HOW

symbol_info_string — How it works (SYMBOL_PATH)¶

📌 Overview¶

This example shows how to use the low-level asynchronous method symbol_info_string() to retrieve a string property of a symbol and parse it at the application code level.

The example uses the SYMBOL_PATH property, which describes the symbol's location in the MetaTrader terminal's Market Watch hierarchy.

Method Signature¶

async def symbol_info_string(
    symbol: str,
    property: SymbolInfoStringProperty,
    deadline: Optional[datetime] = None,
    cancellation_event: Optional[asyncio.Event] = None,
):

Key points:

The method is asynchronous and called with await
symbol — trading symbol name
property specifies which string property of the symbol to retrieve
The method returns an object containing the string property value

🧩 Code Example — Retrieving and parsing symbol path¶

result = await account.symbol_info_string(
    symbol="EURUSD",
    property=market_info_pb2.SYMBOL_PATH
)

path = result.value
folders = path.split("\\")

print(f"Symbol Path: {path}")
print(f"Hierarchy: {' > '.join(folders)}")

In this example, the symbol_info_string() method is used to retrieve the symbol path, after which the string is parsed into separate levels.

🟢 Detailed Explanation¶

1️⃣ Requesting Symbol String Property¶

result = await account.symbol_info_string(
    symbol="EURUSD",
    property=market_info_pb2.SYMBOL_PATH
)

At this step:

one asynchronous call is performed
the symbol name and string property type are passed to the terminal
a response object is returned

The method itself does not interpret the value — it only returns the string associated with the symbol.

2️⃣ Extracting Value¶

path = result.value

Here:

result.value — regular Python string
example value:

Forex\\Majors\\EURUSD

After this line, the API work is complete, only the local value is used further.

3️⃣ Parsing String into Levels¶

folders = path.split("\\")

The level separator is the \\ character.

The result is a list of strings:

["Forex", "Majors", "EURUSD"]

String parsing is performed entirely on the user code side.

4️⃣ Human-Readable Representation¶

print(f"Hierarchy: {' > '.join(folders)}")

This step is not related to the API.

It is only needed for:

visual display of hierarchy
debugging
interface output

What SYMBOL_PATH Means¶

SYMBOL_PATH is a string description of where the symbol is located in the Market Watch tree of the MetaTrader terminal.

The last element of the path always corresponds to the symbol itself, while all previous elements are the groups in which it is displayed.

For example:

Forex\\Majors\\EURUSD

means:

the symbol EURUSD is located in the Majors group, which is in the Forex group

Important Note¶

The SYMBOL_PATH structure:

is not standardized
may differ between brokers
may have different depth

Therefore, the path should be considered as descriptive metadata, not as a strict format.

Summary¶

In this example, symbol_info_string() is used to retrieve a string property of a symbol and parse it in application code.

The method returns the string without interpretation, while all logic for analyzing and using the value is entirely on the user side.