Report wrapper to call python scripts?

[John Ralls]

> On Jan 3, 2015, at 8:35 AM, Christoph Holtermann <c.holtermann at gmx.de> wrote:
> 
> Am 03.01.2015 um 16:37 schrieb John Ralls:
>>> On Jan 3, 2015, at 2:44 AM, Christoph Holtermann <c.holtermann at gmx.de> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Hello,
>>> 
>>> Having read this thread I wondered if there could be some sort
>>> of interface to export data from gnucash so that any kind of
>>> external report generator could work on it.
>>> Exporting the selected data to i.e. an xml file.
>>> The external program would then handle the data it's way and could
>>> be distributed separately.
>>> 
>>> To ease such process something like a plugin-system for gnucash
>>> could be introduced.
>>> Having the option to insert a button to start this program or
>>> preferences dialog in the gui.
>> The simplest "export" is to use the SQL backend. There are a variety of report generators available for SQL databases. Since the next release of GnuCash will be SQL-centric (replacing QOF for queries and providing record-level locking for simultaneous multi-user access), I think this is the way to go.
> I don't really understand this yet. Is the idea to give other applications access to the main SQL database itself ?

There's no good way to stop them. ;-) It's not why we're doing it, but it's a useful side effect. Several users are already using the SQL database for custom reports, and Wm has already posted a couple of how-tos to the user list with the promise of more to follow.

Regards,
John Ralls