Sort transactions by date within a day

Mike or Penny Novack mpnovack at mtdata.com
Mon Jun 22 09:42:43 EDT 2015


On 6/22/2015 1:22 AM, GT-I9070 H wrote:
> Hi Michael,
>
> Thank you for your attention!
>
> The vast majority of my transactions are written in GNUCash Android 
> and imported into GNUCash Desktop. In GNUAndroid transactions are 
> sorted by date and time. I write when I realize that, so I have my 
> updated balance and know in advance when I need to perform a new 
> withdrawal without counting my money which is not always all in my 
> wallet. That to me is important because I know how much foreign 
> currency I have available and for me, a withdrawal is an exchange.

But did you understand my question? (about the MEANING of the time stamp)

I was not suggesting that for SOME transactions there might not be a 
"real time" associated with them. I gave as an example of that a credit 
card transaction. What I was saying that IN GENERAL there would not be a 
"real time" relationship.

Take another (closer) look at your own example. What is the "real time" 
relationship between when the transaction takes place (you buy 
something, you exchange one currency for another, etc.) and when you 
ENTER that transaction (in you Android or however. When doing that 
consider not only your customary "work flow" but all the ways this could 
happen. That's why I was questioning the meaningfulness of time stamps 
in general.

Do I need to make clearer what I am saying? You go to a food kiosk and 
buy lunch (transaction 1) and while they are preparing your food to an 
type ATM device and obtain some more local currency (transaction 2). You 
pick up your food and sit down at a table to eat, and while sitting 
there enter these transaction. What COMPELS you to enter 1 before 2 and 
what is the meaning of the time you entered the transactions vs the time 
when those transactions actually took place (transaction 2 probably had 
a REAL time stamp associated with it). This "time stamp" provided by 
your Android; that's the time at which you entered the transaction, 
right? What does THAT have to do with when the transaction took place?

Michael

PS: If this concern about the meaning of time and NECESSARY order of 
events, let me assure you that some of the subtler bugs in computer 
systems are because somebody made an assumption that a time/order 
relationship would always, of necessity, hold true.


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