QIF spec ambiguity in example file

[Ricardo Biloti]

Dear John

I totally agree with you. I am trying myself to write some scripts to
produce QIF file from my personal sources and I am struggling with lack of
precise information on QIF specification.

Personally, I would like to see the complete reference for the (subset) QIF
format that Gnucash understands, as well as a rich list of sample
transactions and their QIF translation.

Regards,
Biloti

Em 27/04/2014 11:28, "John Ralls" <jralls at ceridwen.us> escreveu:

>
> On Apr 27, 2014, at 5:13 AM, twinbee42 at skytopia.com wrote:
>
> > Hi John, I've just been looking over your article on the QIF
> specification and have been pondering an apparent ambiguity in the "Sample
> Files" example QIF file at the end. I was wondering if you'd be so kind to
> help clarify things.
> >
> > Here's the article:
> >
> >
> http://svn.gnucash.org/trac/browser/gnucash/trunk/src/import-export/qif-imp/file-format.txt
> >
> > After the "!Account" line, we have listed the control chars: N, T, D, Q,
> T, P, N, L, Y. However, the only control chars listed for the "Account
> Information Format" are: N, T, D, L, /, and $. So I'm guessing Q, P and Y
> must be referring to perhaps the control chars from the "Investment
> transaction format". However that doesn't seem to be made clear (as there's
> no caret symbol to say the "Account Information Format" section is over.
> >
> > A further piece of confusion arises since T is listed twice ("TInvst"
> and "T500"), and so T there means two different things. Also, D looks like
> a date ("D10/30/2006"). However D is also a control char for the "Account
> Information Format" which should mean "Description". When parsing this
> algorithmically, how can I tell which one it's supposed to be? A human can
> obviously tell it's a date, but I'm surprised, since specifications are
> usually much more rigid as there can be sometimes be numbers (or even a
> date) in a description if it's simply arbitrary text.
> >
>
> As a general rule one shouldn't write developers directly. Most projects
> have mailing lists for handling user enquiries. Ours is
> gnucash-users at gnucash.org, and I've copied that list on this reply.
> Please subscribe to that list and direct any further correspondence there.
>
> As it happens, I'n not the author of that file, just the last person to
> have touched it for a reason unrelated to its content. I don't know much
> about the QIF spec or the importer. Someone who does can answer your
> questions on the list.
>
> Regards,
> John Ralls
>
>
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