$OpenBSD: patch-lib_Finance_QuoteHist_Generic_pm,v 1.2 2003/09/23 18:38:04 sturm Exp $
--- lib/Finance/QuoteHist/Generic.pm.orig	2003-01-16 17:38:20.000000000 +1100
+++ lib/Finance/QuoteHist/Generic.pm	2003-09-02 01:34:03.000000000 +1000
@@ -24,6 +24,7 @@ my @Scalar_Flags = qw(
 		      ratio_precision
 		      attempts
 		      reverse
+		      reverse_fetch
 		      adjusted
 		      has_non_adjusted
                       env_proxy
@@ -298,7 +299,13 @@ sub target_get {
   my(@rows, %empty_fetch, %saw_good_rows);
 
   foreach my $s ($self->symbols) {
-    foreach ($self->$urlmaker($s)) {
+    my @urllist;
+    if ($self->{reverse_fetch}) {
+      @urllist = reverse ($self->$urlmaker($s));
+    } else {
+      @urllist = ($self->$urlmaker($s));
+    }
+    foreach (@urllist) {
       if ($empty_fetch{$s}) {
 	print STDERR ref $self,
 	   " passing on $s ($target) for now, empty fetch\n"
@@ -551,7 +558,9 @@ sub rows {
 
   # Prep the rows
   foreach (@$rows) {
+    next if (!defined($_));
     foreach (@$_) {
+      next if (!defined($_));
       # Zap leading and trailing white space
       s/^\s+//;
       s/\s+$//;
@@ -709,6 +718,11 @@ sub non_quote_row {
   my @non_quotes;
   foreach (0 .. $#$row) {
     next if $_ == $dcol;
+    # Rows which have undefined fields
+    # (Yahoo include "date,dividend" in with the quotes)
+    if (!defined($row->[$_])) {
+      return $row;
+    }
     next if $row->[$_] =~ /^\s*$/;
     if ($row->[$_] !~ /^\s*\$*[\d\.,]+\s*$/) {
       return $row;
@@ -1191,6 +1205,24 @@ flag. If the overall order is not that i
 flag. Typically, site-specific sub classes of this module will take
 care of setting this appropriately. The default is 0.
 
+=item reverse_fetch
+
+(The default value is 0.)
+
+If true, we fetch each batch of rows in the reverse order to that
+provided by C<quote_urls()>.
+
+Note that the order of rows within blocks is not affected,
+so you might get orders like 7,8,9, 4,5,6, 1,2,3.
+
+Background: I was trying to use Finance::QuoteHist to 'backfill'
+data for current ASX symbols from 1990 to today. When I asked for a
+start date too early the Yahoo server returned a header with no data
+blocks. After more than C<attempts> failures the fetch was aborted.
+By requesting the blocks in the reverse order I get all the data.
+I assume this would not work for any symbols without quotes within
+the most recent requested block (ie defunct symbols).
+
 =item attempts
 
 Sets how persistently the module tries to retrieve the quotes. There