Comments, Observations, and some XML file format questions

cbbrowne@hex.net cbbrowne@hex.net
Mon, 27 Aug 2001 19:33:52 GMT


> Paul Lussier <pll@mclinux.com> writes:
> 
> > In a message dated: 27 Aug 2001 12:44:08 EDT
> > Derek Atkins said:
> > 
> > >Scheduled transactions are being worked on right now.  In fact, there
> > >is some support in current CVS.
> > 
> > That's great, I can't wait until all works :)
> > 
> > However, my motivation for the cmd line utilities was not a 
> > poor-man's implementation of scheduled transactions, rather, as a way 
> > for me to quickly add/duplicate transactions without having to bring 
> > up the GUI, which can be quite painful over a 56K line while I'm here 
> > at work, etc.
> 
> Ahh, that's what client-server systems are for.  You have your Gnucash
> client that connects to your SQL server.  That should work fine for
> your 56K link ;)

Ah, but there's the Even Better option whereby the data (XML?  Scheme?) for a 
transaction gets dribbled into a file, to later be read in when the fullscale 
GnuCash system comes back up.

This means that a cron job could just run a little Perl/Python/whatever script 
that generates a file, possibly containing data for several transactions.

This also provides a convenient way of coping with GUIed "offline operations;" 
transactions could just get dribbled into a data file to be loaded into the 
main GnuCash instance some time later.  So long as a local instance had 
sufficient account information, it wouldn't need to have access to all the data.

Another neat thing about this: It allows data to be transferred in all sorts of 
ways:
-> Several users sharing an NFS mount;
-> Data getting pushed/pulled via FTP;
-> Data getting pushed/pulled via rsync;
-> Written as barcodes on little strips of paper to be carried by pigeons...

[The latter being _bizarre_, but technically feasible
nonetheless...]