Importing business objects in 2.6 -- documentation?

[Buddha Buck]

On Fri, Feb 21, 2014 at 4:28 AM, Mike Evans <mikee at saxicola.idps.co.uk>wrote:

>
> Try chapter 18, Importing Business Data.  You just need to get the import
> file into the correct format, that's what the python notes describe.
>  Perhaps I should rewrite it if it's causing confusion.
>

My guess is that the 2.6 documentation does not show up in a Google search
yet.

An oddity related to the main GnuCash page's link to the documentation: If
you click on the link to the online English version of the 2.6 Help Manual,
you get a warning that the selected language is unavailable, so the English
version will be shown instead. The same happens with the online English
version of the 2.6 Concepts Guide. The links to those two versions specify
"lang=C", not us_EN (or gb_EN, or whatever English is meant).

A couple of comments:

In section 18.1, the required format for invoices or bills is described as
a "fixed field length, comma separated line format." This appears to be
incorrect; it appears to allow comma-separated fields of variable length,
although later portions of that page say that a trailing comma is
necessary. I'm not entirely certain how to interpret "fixed field length,
comma separated line format", because in my experience fixed field lengths
and comma separated are different methods of formatting a data file.

I find the orderering of 18.1 somewhat confusing, since it seemingly
describes the python script to convert to the import format, and the source
format the python script converts from before describing the import format
GnuCash actually wants. If I were to redesign the section, I'd move the
discussion of converting from a vendor-supplied CSV to the GnuCash import
CSV to the bottom, or at least, really generalize it at the top. I would
also have the example sample vendor CSV match the sample import file

18.2 is much shorter, but lacks the field-by-field description of the
fields. It looks like it's just the fields from the customer input screen,
though.