Storing Pivots as a variables? Pine Script - variables

Question

Is there any way to store let's say 5 latest pivots as variables?
There is a simple built-in indicator call Pivot H/L which finds pivots and places plot shapes near them. Is there a way to store them instead of plotting the plot shapes?

Answer 1

yes, you can. It's ugly code, but you can. Here, I show you as an example to do it for the current and last 2 pivot highs. You can extend as much as you want creating more variables in analogy to what is here.
If you're interested in the pivot lows, also just replicate everything to the low pivots.
The way it is shown here, you'll find:
ph0: the last found high pivot
ph1: the penultimate last found high pivot
ph2: the last found high pivot before ph1
This way, we keep (about) the same way we reference past elements of Series variables in Pine-script. Here the code:
//#version=4
study("Trend", overlay=false)
//INPUT VARIABLES
leftBars = input(3)
rightBars = input(3)
//INIT VARIABLES
var float ph_valid = 0
var float ph0 = 0
var float ph1 = 0
var float ph2 = 0
ph = pivothigh(high, leftBars, rightBars)
ph_non_na = nz(ph,0) // stores 0's instead of na's for non-pivot-pointed bars
// Assigns non-na values to pre-instantiated variables
if ph_non_na != 0
ph2 := ph1
ph1 := ph0
ph0 := ph_non_na
else
ph2 := ph2
ph1 := ph1
ph0 := ph0
plot(ph0)
plot(ph1)
plot(ph2)