Company File Name

[Jason Ahrens]

Tony Nelson wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> Sorry for the ultra basic question, but I'm confused by my companies
> GnuCash file name, and also the large number of log files in my GnuCash
> directory.
>
> Does OLC.20080409170103.xac.20080628075545.xac seem like a
> legitimate/correct file name?
>
>   
Yes and no. GNUCash makes frequest backups while it's in use that you 
can "roll back" to if something goes wrong. Each XAC file is one of 
those backups. You can open a backup as if it were a regular GNUCash 
data file and continue editing.

However in the case above, it looks like someone started using a backup, 
didn't "rename" it or save it under a new name, so GNUCash then did it's 
regular thing and start making backups based on the XAC name.

The particular case looks like the data file was called OLC. For some 
reason, someone opened the XAC file from April 9, 2008 5:01:03pm and 
started using that as the datafile. The file name above is then the 
backup from June 28, 2008 7:55:45am after that April 9 XAC file started 
being used as the primary data file.

> Also there are a ton of log files and .xac file in my GnuCash directory.
> Is that to be expected?
>
>   
These are transactional log files. They essentially show the 'delta' 
between the XACs I believe. Again can be useful in recovery if something 
goes wrong.

You can configure how many days worth of backups to keep under 
Edit/Preferences/General. This should generally be a number of days that 
makes sense based on your companies backup policies and needs to be able 
to "revert" if something major happens.

Jason