Qif import and memos

[Derek Atkins]

Quoting Terry Therneau <therneau at mayo.edu>:

>  Arguably?  I think the correct answer is "obviously".  I would never have
> thought of treating a transaction, which is not a split transaction, as
> though it were a split transaction, in order to see any attached explanatory
> information.

I dont think it's actually obvious, or it would have been done that
way in the first place.

>   When entering data, I would certainly not create a fake split too add
> such info.

You're not creating a fake split.  Every balanced transactions MUST (by
defintion) have at least TWO splits:  A Credit split and a Debit split.

>   After reading the documentation I found the current behavior completely
> non-obvious.  But the first thing to check is my eyeballs --- did I miss
> a section that would have given me insight to the comment below?

I don't know.  I dont re-read the documentation regularly.

>>> On this same topic, is there currently a way to show the memo field
>>> in the basic register view, perhaps next to the transfer account?
>
>> The 'memo' is tied to the Split, so in a basic transaction (with two
>> splits), which memo would you show in the regular view?
>
> I deduce from this that all transactions are a list of transfers, a 
> split just
> means that the number of lines >1.  A note is attached to the transaction,
> and the memo to each transfer?

Nope, Try again.  A transaction is a list of Splits, each split is a
debit or credit to/from a particular account.  The sum of all splits
must balance to 0.  So each balanced transaction must have at least
two splits.   What most people think of as a "Split Transaction"
means a transaction with at least THREE splits.

> An answer to the memo display question is to do the same
> thing as the category: show the word "split".

That is certainly "an" answer, but one could argue that there are other
answers, too.   Anything that is MORE confusing than not doing it shouldn't
be done, and frankly I think this would add more confusion than it solves.

> 	Terry Therneau

-derek

-- 
       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
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