GnuCash File Creation and Merge

[Richard Court]

Linas,

Thanks for your detailed reply. I'm still a little fuzzy-headed on this file creation and file merge thing so please tell me more:

>But typically, wouldn't you be merging new qif's into the existing >gnucash file, and so you wouldn't really be doing (need to do) a >'save as'.?

Forgetting the .log and .xac files, I let's say I have these files:

1) pcf20010227.qif (I'll have a series of these files, one for each download - right?)
2) pcf20010227 (account name within GnuCash - should this be renamed?)
3) mypcf (my permanent data file that merges each *.qif file - why doesn't it have an extension?)

Is my understanding of these files correct? 

Say I save my imported and massaged bank transactions as 'mypcf' to /home/richard/PCF. Is this the file you call "the existing gnucash file"? Will this file be overwritten every time I download, import and save transactions for subsequent periods? Or will new transactions be 'tacked on' to my previously allocated transactions leaving the original downloads intact? I guess I'd have to experience a merge to understand how it works. What menu commands do I use to perform a merge or how does it come about?

I take it that once you do your initial 'save as' that the software will save at that location by default in the future.

Regards,
Richard Court

P.S. I'll try to send you a .qfx file sometime but it may take some time. I don't know if there are any security issues. 

P.P.S. For some strange reason the GnuCash window embedded itself at the top of my monitor and I can't reach the title bar to move it down. Is there a way of correcting this? I use a recent version of Gnome.

-------------------------------------------------------------- 

>Subject: Re: GNUcash Save As Problem
>To: lostsocks@my-deja.com (Richard Court)
>Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2001 10:00:49 -0600 (CST)
>Cc: gnucash-user@lists.gnumatic.com
>From: linas@linas.org
>
>It's been rumoured that Richard Court said:
>> 
>> All,
>> 
>> I downloaded a qif file for the period from Jan 1 - Feb 27, 2001 and saved it as PCF20010227.qif in my /home/richard/PCF directory. I then imported this file in Canadian dollars. When I tried to save it, I accidently clicked SAVE and it saved a translog.20010227093419.log file to my /home/richard directory. 
>
>You can mostly ignore & delete the *.log files. They are possibly
>useful if gnucash crashes during a save, in which case you might be 
>able to use them to reconstruct things by hand. But this is a 
>difficult proceedure, and not at all needed if you have the original qif.
>And if gnucash was successful during the save, then the .log files are
>almost completely useless ...
>
>> I really wanted it to be saved to /home/richard/PCF and I subsequently
>> chose the SAVE AS option but didn't know what to call the file. I called
>> it translog20010227 
>poor choice of name: something like 'mypcf' might have been better.
>
>> and it created a bunch of translog files - one with
>> no extension, one .log, and one .xac. Did I save it correctly (i.e., are
>> there a total of three files for each save?). What are the purpose of
>> these various files? 
>
>The .xac is an 'automatic backup copy', one gets created every time you
>save. Its a fully valid copy of your finances as of the datestamp on
>it. You can open it as an ordinary gnucash file.
>
>> The discrepancies between my first SAVE and my
>> second SAVE AS has me puzzled (one file verses three files). What should
>> I have called the SAVE AS file? 
>
>Anything you want.
>e.g. /home/richard/PCF/mynewbankstatements.xac
>or just 
>mystuff.xac (which would go into the current directory.)
>
>But typically, wouldn't you be merging new qif's into the existing
>gnucash file, and so you wouldn't really be doing (need to do) a 'save
>as'.? 
>
>> How do I check to see if GNUcash is picking up the .qif file in my /home/richard/PCF directory and not in the other directory?
>
>? presumably that's what you typed in?
>
>> The PCF directory will obviously get quite busy with future downloads. Is this the best way to handle saving files for the long term?
>
>If you come up with a better idea, let us know; seriously. This will
>affect many users, and it would be nice to have some default
>recomendation for it ...
>
>--linas

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