file locking for single user, multiple gnucash?

[Mike or Penny Novack]

>For the others, I'm not clear on what might happen!
>
>So in summation: is it safe to be a single user and open up two
>different gnucash files at the same time?
>
>Thanks.
>
>--gary
>  
>
The file lock is a lock on the DATA. Essentially it is a temporary file 
placed IN THE SAME DIRECTORY as the data file (log files, etc. will be 
created in the same directory). The reason why locks are commonly done 
this was is that testing for the existence of a file does not require 
the task doing that have access rights to the file.

Just put your data files into different directories and you can have 
them open at the same time. Whether you should or should not do that mi 
depend on how intensively these books are inter-connected. The danger, 
and it's a real danger, is that when both sets of books have accounts 
with the same names you accidentally enter a transaction into the wrong 
set of books <<and the tricks we old timers learned to find errors in 
the books won't help with that one >>

But I could easily see a situation where could be mighty handy, LOT'S of 
transactions going between the books.

However not such a good idea to leave them open when you aren't actively 
using them just to save a bit of time. When you are doing bookkeeping, 
do bookkeeping, not other tasks at the same time. Too easy to make 
mistakes. I like to ALWAYS have a clean, known "save" of my data.