Date-fix (was: GnuCash XML spec)

[Derek Atkins]

John,

On Fri, November 9, 2012 2:47 pm, John Ralls wrote:
>
> Any objections to converting all Timespecs to time_t64? (I decided that
> time_t64 is clearer than gnc_time_t.)

As opposed to time64_t?

> Another issue which I just discovered is that we're using GConf to store
> time_t values for the start and end of fiscal years. GConf doesn't have an
> interface for storing longs, never mind long-longs -- and neither does its
> sort-of successor, GSettings.

There are two issues here.  I think the biggest issue is that we're
actually storing a full date instead of just a Day/Month.  IMHO the Period
entry should just be, e.g. Jan 1 - Dec 31.  Or July 1 - June 30.  I don't
think we should be storing a year, per-se, unless someone has a "short
year".  But honestly do we need to support "short-year" periods?  It's not
like we really have a "Period" object, so there is no historical way to
mark the period for a particular transaction.

Moreover, I don't think the period should be in the Preferences.  It
belongs in the File Properties.  The reason is that if you're managing
different data files for e.g. different companies, they may have different
start-of-the-year dates.

> I can see two ways of dealing with this: We can switch from using GConf to
> storing the fiscal-year in Book (it probably belongs there anyway) or we
> can switch from storing it as a time_t to a GDate Julian (the number of
> days elapsed in the common era) or we can do both. I'm inclined to do
> both: Book would load from the GConf value if its fiscal-year value isn't
> set, the preference dialog would retrieve and set from Book instead of
> GConf, etc.. I haven't really dug in to this part, so I've got a rather
> simplistic view ATM, so there may well be something else I'm missing.

How about storing it in the book, and storing it as a pair of Month/Day
tuples?  :)   This also maps nicely into "current Period" and "last
Period".  :)

> Regards,
> John Ralls

-derek

-- 
       Derek Atkins                 617-623-3745
       derek at ihtfp.com             www.ihtfp.com
       Computer and Internet Security Consultant