Reducing File Size

Tue May 17 09:02:32 EDT 2011

Doug,
Thanks for your response.  My mistake, I didn't mean a new "file", I
meant a new income account.  I also have an equity account called
retained earnings but I see that in a balance sheet report it is not
added to the total equity just like opening balance it not added.  This
seems like an error in the program but maybe there is a reason.  That is
why I used the income account  which then is reflected in equity under
retained earnings.
When I change a stock account to a bank account it generally causes an
imbalance which usually some form of income (dividends, capital gains)
so I have to see that the result makes sense.  I don't think I want to
change your script and have the risk of getting an unexpected result I
don't discover for months.
Mike

On 5/15/2011 8:45 PM, Doug Pastorello wrote:
> Mike,
> Glad to hear that you are making progress. It sounds like you are making
> goos progress. To address your questions;
> 1. You should not need to make a new "file" to zero out the imbalance
> register. Just add a transaction, for the total amount, between
> imbalance and the desired register. I used "retained earnings" because
> it was there. I've been told that doing that is not the best accounting
> practice. Adding the transaction to a register called "accumulated
> earnings" may be more accurate.
> 2. There are two ways of getting rid of the stock accounts. One is to
> modify the Perl script. There is a simple filter in the script that
> causes the script to keep stock transactions. It is a pretty simple
> modification. The other is to do what you said, and chance the account
> type to a bank account. Either should be fine. However, I've never
> changed a stock account into a bank account.
> --Doug.
>
> On Sat, 2011-05-14 at 14:52 -0500, Mike C. wrote:
>> I have finally discovered what I was doing wrong was not entering perl
>> correctly in the cmd line.  I have run it well on a dummy small file
>> before I tackle my 18M data file.  I just have a couple of questions. 
>> The only way I can see to get the "imbalance" to retained earnings after
>> setting starting balances for bank accounts is to add an income file
>> such as "accumulated earnings" in the year being specified after
>> gccull.pl is run and enter an amount that would be the total of retained
>> earnings?  This balance will then be reflected as retained earnings on a
>> balance sheet.
>>  I also have a number of old stock and bond accounts that have zero
>> balance that can't be deleted because of multiple transactions.  Is the
>> best change them to "bank" accounts before running gccull.pl so all the
>> transactions will be deleted or is there a better way?
>> Thanks, this script should make a major difference in the time to load
>> and save my files.
>> Mike
>>
>> On 1/3/2011 7:21 PM, Doug Pastorello wrote:
>>> Mike,
>>> You can rename the attachment.bin file to gcCull.pl. I have no
>>> experience in doing this on a Windows system, but I'll try giving some
>>> insight based on my Lunix work. In Linux, the GnuCash database is an XML
>>> file, which is compressed. My script works on the XML file directly, so
>>> the database needs to be uncompressed before using the script. I expect
>>> there is a Windows tool that can be used to uncompress the DB. Maybe
>>> there is another Windows user in the community here that can describe
>>> how to access the GnuCash XML database.
>>> There are also Windows versions of Perl. Once installed, you should be
>>> able to do something like "perl gcCull.pl my_db.xml 2009". This should
>>> create a new XML file, less the old transactions. You should be able to
>>> compress this new XML (optional?) and open it in GnuCash.
>>> This script does not "zero out" any accounts. It just removes old
>>> transactions. You will need to restore the opening balances for your
>>> accounts. That is why I recommended that you do an account summary
>>> report on the original DB. This data can be used to correct the balances
>>> in the new DB. The stock and mutual fund account transactions (splits)
>>> are not deleted. However, the 'bank' portions of the transactions are
>>> deleted. That is why I recommend running a "Check&Repair" on the new DB.
>>> I hope this helps. Let me know if you have other questions.
>>> --Doug.
>>>
>>> On Sun, 2011-01-02 at 16:53 -0600, Mike C. wrote:
>>>> Thanks for your response to my issue but I am afraid I don't understand
>>>> how to use it.  I don't speak Linux.  I downloaded your attachment that
>>>> is called attachment.bin, not gcCull.pl.  Now I don't know what to do
>>>> with it to install in in Perl and then how do I run it?  I am not
>>>> familiar with gunzip as it is a Linux zip program.  I have a Windows zip
>>>> function but I am not sure why the data file needs to be zipped.
>>>> Does your script zero all the income and expense accounts and put the
>>>> new in equity and leave the stock and mutual fund asset accounts without
>>>> change?  It would be great if that is the case.  Then I could delete the
>>>> unneeded stock asset accounts.
>>>> Hope you can help this Linus illiterate **Windows user.
>>>> Mike
>>>>
>>>> On 1/2/2011 10:43 AM, Doug Pastorello wrote:
>>>>> Mike,
>>>>> I have a script that I use to remove old transactions/splits from the
>>>>> Gnucash file. This will reduce the size of your database. See the
>>>>> following thread;
>>>>> http://lists.gnucash.org/pipermail/gnucash-user/2010-April/034407.html
>>>>>
>>>>> 	--Doug.
>>>>>
>>>>> On Sun, 2011-01-02 at 10:29 -0600, Mike C. wrote:
>>>>>> I have the same problem that several others have mentioned.  Since I
>>>>>> converted over 15 years of Quicken data the Gnucash file is now 1845 KB
>>>>>> after compression and takes a long time to load or to generate reports. 
>>>>>> I would like to eliminate old data that is no longer needed without
>>>>>> affecting the current account totals. 
>>>>>> It seems like I can delete asset accounts that have a zero balance
>>>>>> without causing a problem.  I have lots of accounts that are stock or
>>>>>> bond purchases that have long since been sold.  Is there a problem with
>>>>>> this action to reduce the data file size?
>>>>>> The other accounts I would like to delete are the income accounts
>>>>>> (dividend/interest/capital gains) associated with these stocks and
>>>>>> bonds.  I know I can delete the accounts and move them to Total Income
>>>>>> but that doesn't reduce the data.  Also doing a close books doesn't
>>>>>> reduce the data detail.  I would like to eliminate the detail without
>>>>>> affecting the total assets on the balance sheet.  Does anyone know of a
>>>>>> way of accomplishing this?
>>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>>> Mike
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