My algo is so big it hit the maximum characters allowed! Anyone else have this issue?

1300 isn't bad. Normal “good programming” rules suggest no more than 200 per file. Its easier to debug strategies if you break them into classes / separate files. We found people's huge strategies were making the files difficult to save.

Hey Jared, thanks for the comments.  I'm by no means a professional coder.  I just understand enough to get the job done (barely lol).  The forum here has been great, thanks for putting all this together.  

I thought I saw somewhere that you can break things down into different tabs or files but its all under the same algo.  So could I copy over my bar handlers or option chain providers into a separate file and then my main algo references the other file?  Do you have a reference to help walk me through that?

Is the limit per file? or the sum of all the characters in all the files? 

For breaking up your algo I suggest using classes/object oriented programming. You can pass the QCAlgorithm object to other classes by passing self to them in the algo entrypoint, or use a static holder like:
 

from AlgorithmImports import QCAlgorithm

class Main():
    qcMain: QCAlgorithm = None

    @staticmethod
    def setMain(qcMain: QCAlgorithm):
        Main.qcMain = qcMain

I hope its per file and I can open other files.  I've had to delete a bunch of my logs just to squeeze in recent adjustments.  I need to figure this whole separate files issue out.  What I need to find is a simple working algo with multiple files that I can use as an example.  I appreciate your code but I'm such an armature that I cant follow how that would allow me to open a separate file up.  

David Eldringhoff 

I dont have an example, but I suggest reading some tutorials about Python modules and classes. Then you can just split up your logic into different classes and load them with “import”. My code approaches the problem of “how do i interact with the QCAlgorithm class?”. This is what the algos inherit from. I store that object in a static variable making it accessible to all classes so you don't need to pass it around.  Heres an updated version which includes some useful logging logic. Also if your super stuck i know there are some quantconnect coders on upwork (i'm not there, no self promotion here 😊)

from AlgorithmImports import QCAlgorithm, Symbol
from QuantConnect import SecurityType, Market


class Main():
    qcMain: QCAlgorithm = None
    minLevel = 3

    @staticmethod
    def setMain(qcMain: QCAlgorithm):
        qcMain.Debug("SETTING QCMAIN ");
        Main.qcMain = qcMain

    @classmethod
    def log(cls, message: str, logLevel=2, symbol=None):
        if logLevel is not None and logLevel >= cls.minLevel or \
                symbol is not None and cls.inSyms(symbol):
            cls.qcMain.Debug(message)


    @staticmethod
    def inSyms(symbol: Symbol):
        bill = Symbol.Create("BILL", SecurityType.Equity, Market.USA)
        sks = Symbol.Create("SKX", SecurityType.Equity, Market.USA)
        syms = [bill, sks]

        if symbol in syms:
            return True
        else:
            return False