QIF spec ambiguity in example file

[Daniel White]

> I think you're confusing account definitions from actual transaction
> definition.  Accounts only use N, T, D, L, and B.  Whereas N, T, D, Q,
> T, P, N, L, Y, and $ are most definitely "transaction" fields.

Under "Account Information Format" (which sounds like an "account  
definition"
to me - is that what you meant?), it lists / and $ as well (B is not  
listed).
But even then, the N code could represent either the N from the 'account  
definition'
or N from the 'transaction' - which is it to be? It's ambiguous, at least
as far as I can see.

How do we know when the text "!Account" appears, that a transaction follows
as opposed to defining an account?

In the example shown, the first 'N' is "NAssets:Investments:Mutual Fund".  
The second
'N' is "BuyX". However, there is no caret (^) to separate the types, and  
so there
is ambiguity between what N is supposed to mean what (yes I know a human
can take a very good guess at what they mean, but arbitrary text in those  
fields
could make this theoretically impossible for even a human to parse). The  
same problem
goes for the 'T', and 'D' codes. Are they supposed to mean an account  
definition or
a transaction? How can we know that for sure? It seems N and T are part of
the "Account Information Format", but then what magically makes D part of  
the
"Investment transaction format" instead which comes on the very next line!

Thanks for trying to make sense of this issue.

Regards, Daniel



You use !Account to specify the source account for a !Type:xxx when
specifying multi-account QIF files.

On Mon, 28 Apr 2014 17:06:10 +0100, Derek Atkins <warlord at mit.edu> wrote:

> Ricardo Biloti <biloti at gmail.com> writes:
>
>> 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.
>
> You are welcome to go ask Intuit for that..  I doubt it will go very
> well.
>
> All the "documentation" for the Quicken Interchange Format (QIF) has
> been through reverse-engineering.  So what you get is what you get.
>
> As for the original issue:
>
>> 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
>
> I think you're confusing account definitions from actual transaction
> definition.  Accounts only use N, T, D, L, and B.  Whereas N, T, D, Q,
> T, P, N, L, Y, and $ are most definitely "transaction" fields.
>
> You use !Account to specify the source account for a !Type:xxx when
> specifying multi-account QIF files.
>
>> Regards,
>> Biloti
>
> Hope this helps,
>
>> Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
>> You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
>
> -derek
>


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