python bindings

[Peter]

Derek Atkins wrote:
>
> Actually, no, writing gnucash extensions in python will not be possible;
> gnucash is not going to have a python interpreter embedded in it.
>
>   
Actually, I did not think about an embedded interpreter, more about the 
possibility to call python functions for example from gnucash menu
> 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.
>
>   
Yes, unless you follow a completely different strategy for "quote 
grabbing". For example, I download quote data every week as compressed 
csv files ( that is no screen scraping ) and have to
do all sorts of preprocessing to use that data in a way that is useful 
for me. So perl quotes is of no use for me. ( And I found, that is 
sometimes easier to rewrite something in Python rather than to fix it in 
Perl. (:- )
Also in this case there are excellent python tools like Beautiful Soup 
to parse HTML that are IMHO superior to equivalent perl tools - but this 
is of course a matter personal taste )

Anyhow, let me point out, that the move to a database backend was 
extremly useful for my projects and that I am looking forward to see 
more of Python in gnucash.