python bindings

[Derek Atkins]

Peter <vmail at mycircuit.org> writes:

>>
>> What are the python bindings are intended to do -- add extensions of
>> one sort or another to gnucash?  

> This would certainly be possible, for example to add alternative
> automatical quote update plugins when perl quotes is not the best
> solution
> ( for example, perl quotes does only work on a selection of sites like
> yahoo which has somehow incomplete data for people living in Europe )

Actually, no, writing gnucash extensions in python will not be possible;
gnucash is not going to have a python interpreter embedded in it.

As for a F::Q replacement in python, you could do that now without the
python bindings.  It's a well defined interface for how gnucash calls
the quote-helper, and how the quote-helper returns data to gnucash.

Note that ANY quote grabber is going to be playing catch-up when the
quote source changes its website.  So rewriting F::Q in python isn't
going to solve that problem.  It would just be better to fix F::Q for
the updated source.

>> Or enable independentlypwritten main programs to access some kind of
>> gnucash libraries, thereby enabling user-written python programs to
>> access the gnucash data bases/files?
>>
>>   
> This is what I have in mind. For example, I could write a program that
> would interface a system for securities management to gnucash in order
> to automatically add transactions for bond income payments
> ( I could do this with scheduled transactions but this requires me to
> enter information that I have already entered in a more specialized
> system ).

Yep, this is the real point, to be able to write a python program to
access gnucash data.

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-derek

-- 
       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
       Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
       URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
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