Store GnuCash XML in Subversion?

[Guillaume Lessard]

Hi Don Quixote,

On 2009-07-20, at 08:00, Don Quixote de la Mancha wrote:

> The GnuCash data file is an XML file, which I understand might also be
> gzip compressed.
>
> Would it be sensible, or useful, to store revisions of the file in
> Subversion or some other revision control system?
>
That is exactly what I do; I have been using svn to store my gnucash  
file for  almost 4 years and about 1200 revisions, and taking  
advantage of svn to update my data from more than one location.

You do not need to bother with the compression: just deactivate the  
"compress files" option in the "General" tab of the main GnuCash  
preferences, so that you get a straight xml text file. It will also  
ease information merging if there ever were a timing issue, since the  
updates will become much more human-readable (and remain small, as svn  
will handle compression).

Granted, my uncompressed data takes about 10 times as much disk space  
as the compressed version, but really it pales in comparison to  
digital camera output.

Guillaume Lessard