Reading *old* GNUCash / Xacc file.

[John P. New]

Instead of trying to build an old version of GnuCash on a modern system, what 
about downloading an old linux distribution and installing that in a virtual 
machine? GnuCash was widely distributed, so I am sure that a distribution of 
the corect vinatge would have a GnuCash version that would be able to read 
your file.

John New

On October 24, 2012 01:11:41 PM Robert Heller wrote:
> At Wed, 24 Oct 2012 12:51:17 -0400 "Derek Atkins" <derek at ihtfp.com> wrote:
> > Try GnuCash 1.6?
> > This looks like an old binary format, pre-xml.
> 
> At this point, I'd rather just get some documentation on the format and
> write a small C program to convert it to plain text (just a basic
> transaction report of some sort).  Trying to build an old version of
> GnuCash is probably going to be a bear (rebuilding xacc 1.0.8 was
> 'interesting').  I don't really want to interact with the data -- at
> this point it is dead and frozen.  I have a gnucash (1.8.8) rpm for
> RH7.3, which suggests that GnuCash 1.6 will be very old and would likely
> be hard to build at this point (and I certainly don't want to clobber
> the current installed version of GnuCash by installing an old RPM).
> 
> > -derek
> > 
> > On Wed, October 24, 2012 12:45 pm, Robert Heller wrote:
> > > I have an old (circa 2002) xacc / gnucash file.  A modern version of
> > > gnucash (2.2.9-5.el5) won't read it and an old version xacc (1.0.18-1)
> > > I managed to build won't read it either.  The file starts like this:
> > > 
> > > sauron.deepsoft.com% od -ab ~/Finances/Checking2002/Jan2002.xac | head
> > > -20
> > > 0000000 nul nul nul  nl nul nul nul stx nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul
> > > 
> > >         000 000 000 012 000 000 000 002 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000
> > > 
> > > 0000020 nul  ht   C   h   e   c   k   i   n   g nul nul nul nul  vt   0
> > > 
> > >         000 011 103 150 145 143 153 151 156 147 000 000 000 000 013 060
> > > 
> > > 0000040   3   6   8   4   9   1   0   0   5 nul nul nul nul dc1   C   h
> > > 
> > >         063 066 070 064 071 061 060 060 065 000 000 000 000 021 103 150
> > > 
> > > 0000060   e   c   k   i   n   g  sp   A   c   c   o   u   n   t nul nul
> > > 
> > >         145 143 153 151 156 147 040 101 143 143 157 165 156 164 000 000
> > > 
> > > 0000100 nul nul soh nul nul nul nul eot   U   S   D nul nul nul nul soh
> > > 
> > >         000 000 001 000 000 000 000 004 125 123 104 000 000 000 000 001
> > > 
> > > 0000120 nul nul nul stx   ; nul nul nul soh nul nul nul nul nul   <   1
> > > 
> > >         000 000 000 002 073 000 000 000 001 000 000 000 000 000 074 061
> > > 
> > > 0000140   ] nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul   <   7 dc2   # nul nul
> > > 
> > >         335 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 074 067 022 043 000 000
> > > 
> > > 0000160 nul nul nul nul nul dle   I   n   i   t   i   a   l  sp   B   a
> > > 
> > >         000 000 000 000 000 020 111 156 151 164 151 141 154 040 102 141
> > > 
> > > 0000200   l   a   n   c   e nul nul nul nul soh nul nul nul nul soh nul
> > > 
> > >         154 141 156 143 145 000 000 000 000 001 000 000 000 000 001 000
> > > 
> > > 0000220 nul nul soh nul nul nul nul soh nul   y nul nul nul nul   <   6
> > > 
> > >         000 000 001 000 000 000 000 001 000 171 000 000 000 000 074 066
> > > 
> > > I am unable to build xacc 1.1.17 (things are blowing up in the guile
> > > code -- I'm guessing I have too new a version of guile or something).
> > > 
> > > All I want to do is extact one transaction (I bought something way back
> > > then and don't remember what I paid for it).  Is there some simple way
> > > to decode this file into some sort of flat ASCII text file?  I know the
> > > transaction is in this file, since I can find the ASCII description of
> > > the
> > > transaction.  The *numbers* appear to be in some binary format.
> > > 
> > > --
> > > Robert Heller             -- 978-544-6933 / heller at deepsoft.com
> > > Deepwoods Software        -- http://www.deepsoft.com/
> > > ()  ascii ribbon campaign -- against html e-mail
> > > /\  www.asciiribbon.org   -- against proprietary attachments
> > > 
> > > 
> > > 
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