Patch : editing "Posted" time of transactions.

[gLETTERyYuMEANSj LETTERyOt]

> Daniel,
>
> Please don't submit patches to the mailing list. Open a bug in
> Bugzilla.gnome.org or fork our repo on Github, create a branch with your
> patch, and make a pull request.

I'll choose the buzgilla bug.  I'll then ask my boss if I can take time for a
github account (would be my first time), hoping he is ok with that.

> the branch you're working on -- which should be master for a feature request,
> especially one that changes the database or the way it's interpreted. We
> wouldn't make a change like that in a stable series.

The database is not changed, but for the posted field, which now uses wanted
times in +0000 timezone instead of "00:00:00".

> All contributions to GnuCash must be licensed under the GNU General Public
> License, version 2 or later.

I'll ask my boss about that too.

>                                it would be trivially easy to add a
> function to get the UTC offset in gnc-date.cpp.

I unfortunately failed doing this "triviality".

I tried g_date_time_get_utc_offset (g_date_time_new_from_unix_local(/*...*/))
and g_date_time_format (gnc_g_date_time_new_from_timespec_local (/*...*/),
"%Z") but none of them worked (see exact details in the patch to ChangeLog) on
my particular setup (gnucash-2.6.5 compiled for android 4.1.1).

> Diagnostic messages should be logged using the appropriate macro from
> src/libqof/qof/qoflog.cpp: PINFO or PDEBUG are most appropriate for
> debugging messages.

I had a few problems:

(1) PDEBUG was not output (nor in gnucash.trace neither on
stderr/stdout) by gnucash --extra --debug --debug --debug --debug
--debug --debug --debug --debug --debug --debug --debug --extra
--extra --extra --extra --extra --extra --extra --extra --extra
--extra --extra filename.gnucash

(2) PINFO even prevented some files to compile
(src/libqof/qof/gnc-date.c maybe).

So I switched to printf without looking back again at (1) or (2).

> Entry date handling has long been a matter of controversy in GnuCash, and
> switching the nominal time to 11:00 UTC from 00:00 UTC is the simplest
> option to resolve most of it. 11:00 instead of 12:00 because New Zealand's

I choose 1200Z over 1100Z because this seemed a less surprising default to you,
the gnucash developers, but it is easy to switch my patch to 1100Z. I was not
aware of all the posts that Geert pointed to me. I was only aware of the
strings "date_option_show_time" and "GNC_DATE_EDIT_SHOW_TIME" found in the
sources, but these strings lead me nowhere. So I looked up "%a" in the sources,
because abbreviated weekday name were shown in an interesting place of the
interface. Then I followed function calls, and made the patch I just sent you.

> My understanding is that it's unusual for accountants to care much about
> exact transaction times,

Gnucash for Android allows this, but uses a different file format and
was slower.

Some accounts just cannot get negative, even for a minute. Think for example of
cash.

>                          so I'm curious about your business case for
> requiring it. Please elaborate on that.

I warn you, this might deceive a lot of gnucash developers.

I use the unit XAG, short of grams, to account all transfers between chemical
solutions. Each second, slow reactions are possibly advancing.

The gnucash-2.6.5 interface is nice (full of details) on an Android tablet
(with bVNC and Xvnc) to enter all transfers in real time near a colleague doing
them.

I also had to log the characters typed in Deposit or Withdraw fields in the
memo field, to allow for forensics. I failed this and was told to work on other
things.

I also had to make possible for a transaction to have a different date for each
split. I also failed this.

Daniel