Questions about gnuCash backend access

[Derek Atkins]

Hi,

Please remember to CC the list on all your replies...

"Samuel deHuszar Allen" <dehuszar at gmail.com> writes:

> First, thanks for the quick response.  A quick perusing through the Scheme
> language docs makes me wonder.  What's the best way to inject procedures?  Is
> learning Scheme a worthwhile endeavor? Or are there some quick bindings that I
> can access using some common (non-C++ as I am a C-Dummy) XML exchange such as
> SOA, SOAP, etc.?  Can I use gnome GUI tools to invoke commands or scripts?  I
> want to be able to create a web-based interface, or some kind of transaction
> broker that can inject/retrieve information from a local gnucash
> installation.  It looks like there's no gnucash server of any kind.

You can get GnuCash to load new scheme procedures at runtime.  It's
not the EASIEST thing in the world, but it's possible.   Note also
that I said "C", not "C++".

IMHO learning Scheme is always a good idea.  It's a very useful
language to know from a Computer Science point of view.  It's very
easy to learn (it should take a good programer no more than a day to
really learn the syntax, and a week to learn the basic APIs).

Adding SOA/SOAP etc. to gnucash would be MUCH more challenging.
GnuCash (as-is) is a desktop applkication, not a web-app.  No, there
is no "gnucash server".

> Without C++ knowledge, am I sunk?  Thanks again for your help, and my
> apologies for hand-holding requests.  If I don't have to learn an enormous
> high-level programming language to do what I want, I'd prefer to not.  :)

See above.  There is no C++, there is only C.  But if you don't
know C and aren't willing to learn Scheme, then yes, you're SOL.

> Thanks again.
>
> Sincerely,
> Sam

-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
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