Data portability?

Geert Janssens janssens-geert at telenet.be
Wed Jun 22 14:08:44 EDT 2011


On woensdag 22 juni 2011, DonM wrote:
> > Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2011 13:01:39 +0200
> > From: Geert Janssens<janssens-geert at telenet.be>
> > Subject: Re: Data portability?
> > 
> > On dinsdag 21 juni 2011, Henry L. Voss wrote:
> >>  Can a GnuCash datafile created on one platform be subsequently used on
> >>  another platform?
> >>  i.e., can a Linux business user send a data file to his Windows 7
> >>  accountant and each access the data with their platform specific
> >>  version of GnuCash?
> > 
> > That should be possible indeed.
> > 
> > There are a few caveats though:
> > 1. If the two computers use different number formats, that will cause
> > troubles. For example if one PC uses the European format (1.500,00) and
> > the other uses an American format (1,500.00). GnuCash will not be able
> > to read the same file on two PC's. This should only rarely be an issue
> > though. Other than that, the data file should be completely platform
> > neutral.
> 
> Really? So if I change my regional settings, I can no longer open my
> gnucash file?
> 
> When I open the data file with a text editor, the transaction amounts look
> like "645/100" (to represent $6.45), which would be independent of what
> regional settings the computer is set to.
> 
Hm, it looks like I'm mistaken then. The amounts as you show them are 
definitely portable.

I seem to remember encountering an issue like this with scheduled 
transactions. For example, my data file contains this snippet in the scheduled 
transaction templates:
            <slot>
              <slot:key>credit-formula</slot:key>
              <slot:value type="string">1.200,00</slot:value>
            </slot>

This still seems to be very locale dependent. So perhaps the issue is only in 
scheduled transactions.

Geert


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