2009-02-10 GnuCash IRC logs

02:08:30 *** warlord-afk is now known as warlord
02:08:38 <warlord> Rolf1: you still around?
02:08:49 <Rolf1> yes
02:10:54 <warlord> Any chance you could login to code.gnucash.org and try to use svn+ssh to there?
02:11:17 <warlord> Maybe even try to commit a test?
02:12:36 <warlord> (I'm trying to test the code.gnucash.org services to make sure they are all configured correctly. If so then in a few days I can migrate the real data over)
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04:09:06 <Rolf1> ???
04:10:41 <Rolf1> Oh, your comment was not directed to my earlier error report, was it?
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04:11:08 <Rolf1> warlord: As you may have seen I successfully committed two changes to the SKR04
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08:42:50 <warlord> Rolf1: I dont see that you committed to "code.gnucash.org", but rather the existing "svn.gnucash.org". I'm looking for someone with a restricted shell to test out the new (code) server.
08:44:23 <warlord> Rolf1: looking at your build logs, they look debian-specific.
09:05:29 <joslwah> warlord, Anything I can do to test it?
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09:18:01 <warlord> joslwah: unfortunately no... I need someone with commit access to test it. Or I might just create myself a commit account.
09:18:56 <joslwah> warlord, NP.
09:19:09 <warlord> But thank you! I appreciate all the testing you've done so far.
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10:10:33 <djMax> is there a list somewhere of which account types can live under which other types?
10:11:50 <warlord> There are three buckets:
10:12:04 <warlord> A & L, I & Ex, and Eq
10:16:18 <djMax> ok
10:16:54 <djMax> (I wrote an account sorter that munges the XML, but would be nice to make sure it doesn't kill the file)
10:17:09 <warlord> What do you mean "sorter"?
10:17:42 <djMax> So when we last left our villian he had 300 investments, including lots of covered calls. He wanted to put the calls under the underlying securities.
10:17:54 <djMax> and he wanted his accounts in alpha order.
10:18:05 <djMax> and he wanted to be able to lookup symbols easily.
10:18:17 <djMax> so I wrote a .Net app that hits the XML and does those things.
10:19:07 <djMax> And figured I'd toss it out there somewhere in case someone wanted it, but it'd be nice to be slightly smart about not letting accounts get placed under things they can't live under.
10:19:40 <djMax> you may say that's like putting out a do-it-yourself grenade kit, which I can accept, in which I'm done.
10:19:51 <djMax> ^in which case I'm done^
10:20:17 <warlord> heh
10:20:56 <djMax> man, Money blows. It exports QIFs for investment accounts where the stock split is not reflected in the prices and not recorded in the file anywhere else.
10:21:51 <warlord> Well, you only need two of three values: the #shares, the share price, and the total value of the stock. You can compute any one from the other two.
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10:22:04 <warlord> GnuCash stores the #shares and the total value and always computes the price.
10:23:15 <djMax> If I record a split at a date in the past, will GnuCash update past/future info correctly? Or does it assume the split happened now.
10:23:39 <warlord> Well, only transactions have dates.
10:23:46 <warlord> BUT it should update past/future info correctly.
10:24:40 <warlord> I need to reboot.. Back shortly...
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10:54:13 <Rolf1> warlord: Let me know what you want and I can do it. Just push to code.gnucash.org instead of svn.gnucash.org?
10:55:27 <warlord> Rolf1: yes. (although just as a test -- I'm going to blow away the repo on code when I migrate over.. So anything you really want to keep should still go to svn)
10:55:45 <warlord> So just do an svn checkout from code and then make a commit of something.
10:57:29 <Rolf1> OK
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11:13:35 <warlord> Thank you.
11:18:21 <Rolf1> Committed revision 17879.
11:22:29 <warlord> Excellent. I see it in trac's timeline. Perfect! :-D
11:24:10 <warlord> Thank you, Rolf!
11:24:59 <djMax> so this is more an accounting question. Let's say I'm holding 10 shares of a company, let's call it Netscape.
11:25:16 <djMax> And let's say, hypothetically, some crazy company buys them. Let's call them AOL.
11:25:22 <djMax> How is that share transaction properly recorded?
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11:43:42 <andrewsw> warlord: pong? three days later?
11:44:06 <warlord> andrewsw: was looking for someone to test ssh access to code.ihtfp.org
11:44:22 <andrewsw> sorted?
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11:46:31 <warlord> sorted?
11:46:40 <andrewsw> did you get it sorted out?
11:47:39 <warlord> Yes, Rolf1 tested for me.. :)
11:47:59 <andrewsw> cool. later.
11:48:07 * andrewsw goes to school...
11:48:24 <warlord> later!
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13:20:14 <bluefox> I have an Expenses account "Depreciation"
13:20:38 <bluefox> and accounts Assets:Solid Assets:Vehicles:2008 Cobalt:{Cost,Depreciation}
13:21:14 <bluefox> I put the original material cost of the vehicle (sans loan interest, warranties, discounts, etc) into "2008 Cobalt:Cost"
13:22:09 <bluefox> and for 2008 Cobalt:Depreciation, I credited Expenses:Depreciation by (Original Material Cost) - (Jan 1, 2009 Kelly Bluebook Value) for Jan 1 2009
13:22:35 <bluefox> so it now reflects about -$3000 under Depreciation for the vehicle, and a $3000 expense under Expenses
13:22:37 <bluefox> is this correct?
13:22:48 <bluefox> (obviously, this gets adjusted when the vehicle's actually sold)
13:29:47 <warlord> looks correct.
13:30:42 <bluefox> k
13:30:55 * bluefox adjusts all the charts to not reflect depreciation, because he's only interested in cash flow.
13:31:10 <bluefox> I wish I could save a report view configuration :(
13:31:32 <bluefox> if I ever open another gnucash file on this computer or accidentally close the tab I'll lose this thing o_O
13:32:16 <warlord> bluefox: you can. Change the name and click "Add Report"
13:32:31 <warlord> But it will be 'tied' to this account.. Account selection is by GUID.
13:32:40 <bluefox> ah.
13:33:16 <bluefox> i.e.I can't send it to a friend.
13:33:23 <bluefox> for use with their accounts
13:36:57 <warlord> Correct.
13:40:16 <goodger> google checkout is... improper
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14:00:44 <djMax> do any of the external tools in GnuCash manipulate the XML directly?
14:01:25 <warlord> nope.
14:01:54 <warlord> manipulating the xml outside gnucash itself is not supported.
14:02:01 <warlord> everything we ship uses the gnucash APIs.
14:04:21 <djMax> is there any sort of language agnostic module interface?
14:04:44 <warlord> language AGNOSTIC?
14:04:53 <warlord> i'm not sure exactly what you mean..
14:05:19 <warlord> The main code is C. There are Scheme bindings, and we include a scheme interpreter in the application -- so extensions can be written in scheme.
14:05:44 <djMax> yeah, e.g. I want to write some add-ons in C#, is there some hook that would allow me to do that. IE XPCom, COM, calling convention, etc.
14:05:48 <warlord> Someone was working on some Python bindings, but I dont think they're in 2.2 -- and that's only for external apps.
14:05:55 <warlord> Nope.
14:06:17 <djMax> so in theory the way to add that would be to supplement the Scheme bindings with something else
14:06:35 <warlord> Nope. We have no intention to add another interpreter in gnucash.
14:07:00 <warlord> you could supplement the scheme and python bindings with, say, a C# bindings (Assuming swig supports C#), and then write external apps against the gnucash libs.
14:07:17 <djMax> I see.
14:07:20 <djMax> Are there "C bindings"?
14:07:25 <warlord> But you wont be able to write a plug-in extension in C#..
14:07:31 <djMax> (and why not add another interpreter?)
14:07:36 <warlord> E.g., I can add a menu item from Scheme.
14:07:37 <warlord> (or C)
14:07:38 <djMax> or replace scheme with something new
14:07:43 <warlord> See the FAQQ
14:07:45 <warlord> FAQ even
14:07:53 <djMax> oh, well from C might work for C#, will check it
14:08:17 <warlord> Nope.
14:08:22 <warlord> At least... unlikely..
14:08:38 <warlord> Unless you include the mono libs in your module....
14:09:31 <djMax> SWIG in theory is supposed to make this transparent to GnuCash right?
14:10:09 <warlord> No.
14:10:16 <warlord> Well, yes and no..
14:10:27 <warlord> Swig is designed to let you call C APIs from other languages.
14:10:40 <warlord> It's NOT designed as a way to include multiple /extension/ languages.
14:10:41 <djMax> meaning it is how I can write non-GnuCash programs to mess with GnuCash
14:10:50 <warlord> there's a difference between language bindings and extensions.
14:11:02 <djMax> I assume if I were to do things that way I wouldn't be able to run my external prog and GnuCash at the same time?
14:11:18 <warlord> yes... Using swig you could write an /external/ app using the gnucash APIs in another language..
14:11:41 <warlord> Ummmm.... Correct.
14:11:55 <warlord> Your external app would still need to serialize access to the gnucash database.
14:12:19 <warlord> (at least for now, until gnucash itself supports multiple clients accessing a DB)
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15:10:12 <djMax> is it generally true that the only thing that ties a transaction to an account (in the XML) is the node for the transaction?
15:11:26 <warlord> It's the split that ties a transaction to an account.
15:11:40 <warlord> a balanced txn has >= 2 Splits
15:11:56 <djMax> yeah, I mean that overall node, i.e. that there are no other stored items that are important to that transaction
15:12:08 <djMax> (e.g. if you *create* a transaction, there are some counts in the XML that would be wrong)
15:12:51 <djMax> I guess another way of putting it is how normalized is the XML... It seems almost completely normalized, save for the count-data and the commodity references
15:12:57 <warlord> Ummm.... I dont understand what you're saying.
15:13:10 <warlord> I'm not sure.
15:13:17 <djMax> ok, nprb
15:13:19 <djMax> randomly, I'm pretty sure the direction on this is wrong: http://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/FAQ#Q:_How_do_I_keep_track_of_capital_gains_with_stocks.3F
15:13:33 <djMax> I can fix but maybe I'm missing something
15:14:48 <warlord> What do you mean "direction is wrong"?
15:15:09 <djMax> When you purchase stock in company XYZ, it would be a credit to the XYZ account and a debit to cash
15:15:26 <warlord> Nope.
15:15:33 <warlord> You've got it backwards.
15:15:57 <djMax> but purchasing securities for cash shouldn't raise the cash balance should it?
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15:16:19 <warlord> Exactly, which is why it's a credit to cash
15:16:39 <warlord> A debit increases an asset, a credit decreases an asset.
15:16:47 <djMax> so a credit to cash reduces the balance of cash?
15:16:52 <warlord> yep.
15:17:19 <djMax> ok, got it. Is that because it's not actually 'Credit to' but 'Credit from'?
15:17:20 <warlord> Keep in mind that when you get a bank statement you're seeing it from THEIR side.. Your checking account is a LIABILITY to them.
15:17:31 <djMax> I see.
15:17:53 <djMax> On the cap gains issue, I assume it would be up to me to track short and long term cap gains separately?
15:17:53 <warlord> So when you Debit your checking, they are crediting your checking.. And vice-versa.
15:18:02 <warlord> Yes.
15:18:12 <djMax> k, thanks.
15:18:38 <djMax> it really is an incredibly powerful tool. Now to use it more like an exacto knife and less like a steamroller.
15:18:49 <warlord> heh
15:19:48 <djMax> if/when I close books, I assume it will leave open stock positions alone?
15:20:09 <warlord> Depends on how you close the books.
15:25:04 <warlord> If you use the Tools -> Close Books then all it does it zeroize the Income and Expense accounts.
15:25:14 <djMax> ok, thx.
15:26:01 <warlord> It doesn't remove anything.
15:26:39 <djMax> i.e. just transfers money into retained?
15:26:43 <goodger> warlord: how does it do this zeroization?
15:27:03 <warlord> djMax: basically, yes.
15:27:11 <goodger> righto
15:28:00 <warlord> goodger: iterates over all accounts and creates two transactions, an Income txn and and Expense txn, with splits into each non-zero Inc/Exp account, and into the user-specified Equity accounts.
15:28:11 <warlord> (and it will make subaccounts if you have multiple currencies)
15:28:13 <goodger> I see
15:28:24 <warlord> see dialog-book-close.c
15:32:24 <goodger> ¬.¬
15:32:31 <goodger> ...sure/ :P
15:33:57 <djMax> The reason I asked about the XML normalization is that I was going to write a tool that would move transaction splits from one account to another... Nothing inherently crazy about that right?
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15:37:00 <warlord> c.f. editing the xml is not supported.. ;)
15:42:06 <goodger> yeah, I'd use the APIs
16:06:20 <djMax> I have almost no chance of using the APIs just because of the time difference.
16:06:33 <djMax> Obviously I'm willing to suck it up if I screw up, that's what backups are for.
16:06:58 <djMax> I would assume if it was easy to write something to move transactions in bulk it would already be around.
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16:19:29 <warlord> It's not that hard per se... It's just nobody has done it.
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16:28:17 <djMax> if one were setting up a GnuCash build, would one think OS X or Windoze would be less painful?
16:28:36 <warlord> I'd go for Linux.. ;)
16:28:47 <djMax> yeah, I assumed that.
16:28:56 <warlord> between Mac and Win.... Not sure.
16:28:59 <djMax> fair enough though: Virtual Linux, OS X, or Win.
16:29:04 <djMax> Sounds like virtual linux
16:29:29 <djMax> particular distro that would be least painful (i.e. are instructions often written with one in mind)
16:29:47 <warlord> nope. I'd suggest either Fedora or Ubuntu.
16:32:33 <djMax> k
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