Aw: Re: Re: Re: sequential use of Gnucash on multiple computers

[Peter von Kaehne]

   Thanks Geert,

   On the risk of appearing a bit thick..,

   Is there a risk of the following happening?

   File 1

   Transaction A
     ..
   Transaction New1
     Split New1a
     Split New1b

   Transaction B
     ..
   ----------------------------

   File 2

   Transaction A
     ..
   Transaction New2
     Split New2a
     Split New2b
   Transaction B
     ..
   ---------------------------------

   Merged File


   Transaction A
     ..
   Transaction New1
     Split New2a
     Split New1a
   Transaction New2
     Split New1b
     Split New2b
   Transaction B
     ..

   --------------------------

   This would obviously be a corrupting disaster.

   A simple merge conflict would be annoying. But corruption would be a
   much bigger problem

   Peter

   Gesendet: Dienstag, 21. Mai 2013 um 12:29 Uhr
   Von: "Geert Janssens" <janssens-geert at telenet.be>
   An: "Peter von Kaehne" <refdoc at gmx.net>
   Betreff: Re: Aw: Re: Re: sequential use of Gnucash on multiple
   computers

   On Tuesday 21 May 2013 12:01:52 Peter von Kaehne wrote:

   Thanks Geert,


   Can you expand on that? Why would there be conflict? This obviously
   would be a reason that these are not good tools for the job!


   Gesendet: Dienstag, 21. Mai 2013 um 11:52 Uhr
   Von: "Geert Janssens" <janssens-geert at telenet.be>
   But I'd expect concurrent changes on different PC's to conflict more
   often
   than not from a pure text point of view, even though you may have
   entered two
   totally unrelated transactions in the two PCs.

   Sure. New transactions entered are added sequentially to the data file
   (based on date entered). So if you add one transaction in version A of
   your file and another transaction in version B of your file. The
   resulting files will both have different text added at the same
   location in the file. Svn only sees text, it doesn't understand
   transaction and split semantics, so it will raise a merge conflict.


   Add to this that guids are random and it is very hard to enter the same
   transaction on two pc's a the same split second. This means that even
   if you enter the exact same transaction on the two different PC's, svn
   will still see conflicting text in the same locations in the file: two
   different guids and two different entry dates.


   You can easily try this yourself: create a minimal gnucash file. Then
   make a copy of it. Now open each file and add one transaction. Finally
   run a diff on the files. The diff will not show two independent blocks
   added in each file, but instead it will show overlapping changes.


   You could of course manually resolve each such conflict, but that is
   tedious and error prone. In my opinion you don't gain from such a set
   up.


   Geert