Proposal for modifying gnucash to use exact quantities

[Buddha Buck]

At 06:53 AM 8/2/00 -0500, Richard Wackerbarth wrote:

>Here, I think the question degenerates into "What is a commodity?"
>
>You and I view "$/8 USD" and "$/100 USD" as two different commodities. OTOH,
>I believes that Bill views them as the same commodity and feels that it is
>permissible to add them. I don't think that anyone proposes to add $USD to
>$CND.

There are several ways of looking at this, I guess...

I view "$/8 USD" and "$/8 USD" to be the -same- commodity (obviously).
You can add, subtract, and compare X $/8 USD and y $/8 USD.  They share the 
same display function.

I view "$/8 USD" and "$/8 CND" to be -different- commodities.  You can't 
add, subtract, or compare them.  The only permissible operation is a 
conversion between them using an explicit conversion ratio -- with the 
understanding that the conversion is not exact and may not be 
reversible.  They may or may not share the same display function.

I view "$/8 USD" and "$/100 USD" to be -similar- commodities.  You can't 
add or subtract them, but comparison should be possible.  Conversion 
between them is possible without an explicit conversion ratio -- the ratio 
is implicit.  They probably don't have the same display function.

Is there a sensible way to include that concept?

What I'd like is to be able to specify to the conversion routine two 
commodities and a price without having to worry about conversions within 
USD or whatever.  Being able to be told that $50 2/8 USD, at $1.50 
CND/$1.00 USD, is $75 3/8 without having to specify that $1 0/8 USD = $1.00 
USD and $1 0/8 CND = $1.00CND would make dealing with exchange-rate tables 
-much- easier.