QIF patch-o-the-day (supersedes previous patch)

[Derek Atkins]

grib@gnumatic.com (Bill Gribble) writes:

> On Wed, Feb 14, 2001 at 05:53:04PM -0500, Derek Atkins wrote:
> > I have no idea why the QIF file loaded my mutual fund as a stock.
> > Here is the particular QIF file I loaded.  Maybe that will help you?
> > The file itself belongs to "500 Index", which is the MF account,
> > "Treas MM" is a Bank account.
> 
> There's no difference to speak of in the QIF file between mutual funds
> and stocks, and there's really no difference in Gnucash.  I'm not too
> surprised that's wrong (or all that concerned, really... you can
> always just change the type from 'stock' to 'mutual' after the first
> import, and after that [once the bug is fixed] it will DTRT).

I presume that if the Mutual Fund account already exists in Gnucash it
will work (once the bug is fixed) the first time I import? ;)

> On the other hand, the 'account name conflicts' here turn out to be a
> symptom of a fairly deep-seated bug in the handling of stocks/funds.
> I know what it is but it's going to take a little bit of doing to fix
> it.  (BTW the fix will also stop the importer from asking you about
> stocks all the time).

I've been trying to understand the QIF importer so I could help supply
patches myself, but the code is a bit spaghetti-ish to my "novice"
eyes.  I do know scheme (having taken SICP a decade ago), although I
am pretty rusty.  Is there a design doc somewhere that explains the
overall architecture of the importer, perhaps with a description of
each file and a few key entry points (function names)?  

I'd also be interested to know what the "deep-seated bug" is (after
you fix it, when you have the time :)

> I'll hopefully have a patch for this tomorrow.

Wonderful.  I look forward to it, and I'll test it as soon as I get
it.

> b.g.

-derek

-- 
       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
       Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
       URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
       warlord@MIT.EDU                        PGP key available