Any differences in choosing MySql vrs XML file?

[Geert Janssens]

Op dinsdag 24 januari 2012 00:49:03 schreef David T.:
> Modifying the data file from outside Gnucash (regardless of file format) is
> not recommended.
The reason for this is that the sql backend in itself doesn't enforce the 
required accounting restrictions. I'm not even sure if this would ever be 
possible. The accounting restrictions are currently enforced by the gnucash 
engine, which is an internal library written mostly in C code. By manipulating 
the data directly in the database, you risk creating data that - while 
adhering perfectly to the database's referential integrity - is invalid from a 
double accounting point of view.

A simple example: via the database you could easily create a transaction that 
doesn't balance. This is not allowed by the accounting rules and would make 
your data invalid for use by GnuCash. Yet this constraint would be very hard 
to enforce on the database level.

> Most people I hear wanting this go with an app that will
> export QIF which can later be imported.

That is probably your best option on iOS.

Another option would be to port the gnucash library (which the developers 
usually refer to as the 'engine') to iOS and then write an iOS app that uses 
this library. As things stand now, this would a very large project, because 
this library depends on other libraries that are not available on iOS and that 
are outside the GnuCash code. So unless you have lots of available time and 
code porting experience, the QIF route is probably the way to go.

Geert