# Dynamic Linking to Other Programs **URL:** \ **Category:** Questions\ **Tags:** finance, mathematica, curated-data\ **Created:** [September 10, 2013, 4:04am UTC](https://community.wolfram.com/t/dynamic-linking-to-other-programs/522 "2013-09-10T04:04:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![scottcalabria](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c57346/32.png) [@scottcalabria](https://community.wolfram.com/u/scottcalabria)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2013, 4:04am UTC](https://community.wolfram.com/t/dynamic-linking-to-other-programs/522/1 "2013-09-10T04:04:02Z")
Hi, How do you dynamically link to a data feed from a Trading/Financial program? These types of programs use DDE Links to push dynamic data to Excel. It would be useful to directly link to Mathematica. Example: [http://support.marketdelta.com/entries/116671-How-To-Use-DDE-Dynamic-Data-Exchange-in-MarketDelta](http://support.marketdelta.com/entries/116671-How-To-Use-DDE-Dynamic-Data-Exchange-in-MarketDelta) Thank you. ---
**Author:** ![seanc](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/wolfram/user_avatar/community.wolfram.com/seanc/32/34005_2.png) [@seanc](https://community.wolfram.com/u/seanc)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2013, 2:06pm UTC](https://community.wolfram.com/t/dynamic-linking-to-other-programs/522/2 "2013-09-10T14:06:00Z")
DDE appears to be an old, but still available version of .NET’s COM for interprocess communication ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic\_Data\_Exchange](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_Data_Exchange)). Communicating with a program using DDE requires writing a program using DDE, unless that program has already been written. What source for market data or program were you looking to link to? The code/feasibly will depend on the program you are talking about. Mathematica provides [.NET/Link](http://reference.wolfram.com/mathematica/NETLink/tutorial/Overview.html) which would be a good place to start writing code to work with DDE or COM/OLE. You would need to learn to program C# first however. In some cases, we have provided packages which allow you to communicate with otther programs. For example, the Wolfram Finance Platform comes with a package that allows you to pull data from a bloomberg terminal installation on your machine and there is a package availabel that [allows Mathematica to communicate with Excel](http://www.wolfram.com/products/applications/excel_link/). ---
**Author:** ![scottcalabria](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c57346/32.png) [@scottcalabria](https://community.wolfram.com/u/scottcalabria)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2013, 3:16pm UTC](https://community.wolfram.com/t/dynamic-linking-to-other-programs/522/3 "2013-09-10T15:16:28Z")
Here is antother example of a program using DDE: > **[Futures and Options Trading, Charting, Analytics, and Risk | Plus500 Futures...](https://futures-technologies.plus500.com/)** > > Plus500 Futures Technologies offers the T4 platform for futures and options trading, charting, analytics, and risk management. Try a demo of the platform free for 2 weeks. Why is it so easy to communicate with Excel and not Mathematica, using DDE ? ---
**Author:** ![seanc](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/wolfram/user_avatar/community.wolfram.com/seanc/32/34005_2.png) [@seanc](https://community.wolfram.com/u/seanc)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2013, 11:26pm UTC](https://community.wolfram.com/t/dynamic-linking-to-other-programs/522/4 "2013-09-10T23:26:00Z")
I am not familiar with programming using DDE, but if you were writing in a .NET language, which you would be doing most likely if you were using DDE, you can use Mathematica’s .NETLink. These products have already written the code necessary for their product and excel to interact, but likely haven’t written the code needed to get their product and Mathematica to interact. ---
**Author:** ![ms](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/wolfram/user_avatar/community.wolfram.com/ms/32/13335_2.png) [@ms](https://community.wolfram.com/u/ms)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 8:30pm UTC](https://community.wolfram.com/t/dynamic-linking-to-other-programs/522/5 "2014-04-01T20:30:51Z")
There is source code provided in the old Bloomberg/Mathematica link that may prove useful to you. [http://www.wheels.org/monkeywrench/?p=737](http://www.wheels.org/monkeywrench/?p=737) update, March 4, 2016 -- there’s a new version coming soon. Source code available at [this GitHub link](https://github.com/MichaelSternNYC).