Log files and swap space

[Jason Rennie]

rroth@uiuc.edu said:
> Also, after exiting GnuCash, my desktop is littered with files named
> "accounts.gnucash.20010215223111.log, accounts.gnucash.20010215224806.x
> ac,  accounts.gnucash.b7183e08.15422.LNK" etc. What is the purpose of
> these files, and can I make GnuCash clean them up? or at least put
> them somewhere else? or perhaps not create them at all? 

When I first noticed these files, I was initially quite confused and 
thought GNUCash was a diskspace hog, needing all of these files just to 
keep track of my one account!

Since learning that the .XAC files are backup copies of your full account
(with dates built into them, Feb 15, 2001, 22:31:11 or 10:31:11pm, in the
above .LOG file), I think they are very useful files to have sitting
around.  FYI, .LOG files are a list of all the transactions that you
performed during a session. They can (theoretically) be used in
conjunction with your latest XAC file to nearly fully recover from a
crash.

Anyway, I still find it a bit of a pain that GNUCash dumps all of these
files in ~/gnucash and it would be nice if GNUCash were to manage these
files to some degree.  One possibility would be to dump these files in /
tmp/gnucash/$USER.  This would eliminate confusion over whether these are
files that need to be kept around during normal circumstances.  Yet, it
would be easy enough to access them if a crash does occur.  Anyone who
sees their first crash will surely be able to find out where the backup
files are located so that they can restore (either via web documentation
or this list).  Another possibility would be to keep these files in the
same place but to have GNUCash automatically delete old .XAC and .LOG
files---a preference option could allow the user to decide on how many
backup file to keep around.

Jason