Weird -1/0 exchange rates appear from time to time

[John Ralls]

> On May 20, 2015, at 4:36 AM, Paul Salmon <paul.b.salmon at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I can't figure out what causes this, but these entries find their way
> into my GnuCash file from time to time. Here's one that appeared
> within the last 30 days:
> 
>  <price>
>    <price:id type="guid">d8925eb5c06f2bfa4287f7b25b315605</price:id>
>    <price:commodity>
>      <cmdty:space>ISO4217</cmdty:space>
>      <cmdty:id>USD</cmdty:id>
>    </price:commodity>
>    <price:currency>
>      <cmdty:space>ISO4217</cmdty:space>
>      <cmdty:id>UAH</cmdty:id>
>    </price:currency>
>    <price:time>
>      <ts:date>2012-05-27 00:00:00 +0300</ts:date>
>    </price:time>
>    <price:source>user:xfer-dialog</price:source>
>    <price:value>-1/0</price:value>
>  </price>
> 
> Most of the time the ts:date is a recent one, so this one is extra weird.
> 
> I notice it when my file is processed by a separate tool, which
> (understandably, IMO) fails when it encounters this exchange rate.
> 
> Any ideas on how to stop this happening? Using v2.6.5 on Win7.

-1/0 is an error flag. It’s a bug in GnuCash that it’s being recorded at all, and it should also issue a warning in the GUI when it occurs. If it’s coming from the transfer dialog then it’s from numbers you’ve entered by hand when doing a currency conversion. The date is from the posted date — the one that you enter when creating a transaction — so perhaps you recently edited the exchange rate on an older transaction.

I think it most likely that the actual error is a divide-by-zero, which might be caused by a USD value less than 1/100. I’ll have to look through the code to be sure. It would be great if you could file a bug so that I don’t forget.

Regards,
John Ralls