CSV Import

[Geert Janssens]

On vrijdag 28 april 2017 16:10:48 CEST Steve Isenberg wrote:
> Geert,thanks for the detailed answers to my questions.
> 
> After writing the email I experimented with the import and changed it to
> import into the asset account and it worked. Through trial and error, I
> discovered how the import works.
> 
Great to hear that :)

I immediately have another question regarding your initial test data: were 
there negative numbers in there and if so did they have the minus sign in 
front or behind the number ? If behind, that would explain why your import 
didn't work. That is currently not supported (and still so in the new 
importer) because the number parsing code is pretty limited for now. As said 
in another message in this thread I hope to get around to fixing this still 
before gnucash 2.8 ships.

> I see there was some discussion regarding importing into an asset account.
> So, let me answer the question. Why would I try to import into an income
> account and transfer to an asset account?
> 
> Ignoring concepts about where income originates, here is the important point
> about how the software works.
> 
> I can manually enter transactions into the income account with a transfer to
> the asset account. Given that, it is not unreasonable for a new user to
> expect the import function to follow the same rules as manually entering
> transactions.
> 
Ageed.

> What might make the import a bit more useful is to allow for a transfer
> account to occur in the import row. A user could still review on the screen
> and it might eliminate the need for touching each import record. 

The new importer allows this.

By the way I think this is a good time for a shout out to Robert Fewell. He's 
the one doing the first edition of the new importer for 2.8, including what 
you propose above. I started from his fully working importer, converted it to 
c++ and worked to clean up the ui and user interactions.

> I mentioned
> previously about helping with some testing. I can put it on an old desktop.
> Is there a windows development version ready for testing? Also, are they
> test cases written or is it informal testing?

That's great!
Any nightly build more recent than April 14 should be ok for testing the 
importer. Though GTI mentions file corruption when saving. That seems 
unrelated to the importer though, so you can test the importer. Always work on 
a backup copy !

There are no formal user test cases. Use it, abuse it in every way you can. 
And report your findings.

Regards,

Geert