[GNC-dev] Hello and ofx version 2

[Steve Burns]

Hi Jim, thanks for the reply!

I found Bug 797125 <https://bugs.gnucash.org/show_bug.cgi?id=797125> in the
GnuCash bug database that discussed AmEx specifically so I added a comment
there.
My conversion script is much simpler now, I just needed to replace one
string and it imports correctly.

cat activity.qfx | sed -e 's/<OFX
xmlns:ns2="http:\/\/ofx.net\/types\/2003\/04">/<OFX>/g'
> import.ofx

Regarding the philosophy of the 667 page OFX spec vs. the
financial-institution use of a substandard qfx file format,
I sympathise with the developers who want to do the right thing and
implement the spec the correct way.
At the same time, the end users of the program, who want it to "just work"
for their intended purpose, are also important.
I see the specification as a communication device between different
developers in different groups.
In my opinion, the end users are more important.  You don't have to agree
with me.

Thank you for the encouragement and best wishes,

Steve Burns


On Sun, May 31, 2020 at 5:31 PM Jim DeLaHunt <list+gnucash at jdlh.com> wrote:

> Hello, Steve, and welcome to the Gnucash-Devel list!

...
> OFX version 2.2 spec
> <https://www.ofx.net/downloads/OFX%202.2.pdf> is 667 pages long.

...
> I understand why you would take the expedient of slicing up an OFX
> version 2 file to make it look more like an OFX version 1 file. I have
> to do an expedient slicing-up of OFX files from one of my banks to work
> around their mistakes in the files they generate, so I sympathise.
> However, this expedient approach is not the right way to get something
> as important as OFX support into GnuCash.
> ...
> I hope this is helpful. I'm looking forward to your contributions to
> GnuCash!
>
> Best regards,
>        —Jim DeLaHunt, software engineer, Vancouver, Canada
>
>