[GNC] future of custom reports in 3.x

[John Ralls]

While we would like to replace the reporting system with something more flexible and user friendly we’re a very long way from being in a position to even start on it.

In the meantime there are four alternatives for custom reports:
1. Learn Scheme and qof-query to make custom reports for use inside GnuCash.
2. Learn SQL and use a SQL backend to extract the data you want. The results are generally amenable to import into a spreadsheet for further processing; you could also install the appropriate ODBC module for your SQL engine of choice and connect to it with Libre/OpenOffice, Microsoft Access, or some similar tool with a custom report writer or your favorite programming language’s SQL interface (e.g. DBAPI for Python).
3. Learn Python and use either the python bindings or PieCash (also requires the SQL backend) to query the database and write custom reports.
4. With an XML file use your favorite language's XML bindings with XPATH or XQUERY to retrieve the data and format your report.

Regards,
John Ralls

> On Apr 8, 2018, at 3:33 AM, Amish <anon.amish at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I wonder the same too. Although new reports are enough for me now.
> 
> But I had to delete lots of old custom reports because they no more worked (or compiled)
> 
> But in future I may want to have my own custom reports.
> 
> I wish there was GnuCash library with we could simply call Gnc_LoadFile("path") and then we could also do all the magical things that GnuCash does!
> 
> Amish
> 
> On Sunday 08 April 2018 02:38 PM, Saša Janiška wrote:
>> Hello,
>> 
>> while having problems to load certain (ytd-budget.scm) report in 2.6.20
>> under (Fedora) Linux i nthe attempt to return back to GnuCash from
>> (h)ledger, I wonder if there is some plan in regard to the future of
>> custom reports, iow. is it still recommended to learn some Scheme in
>> order to achieve/tweak  what is missing, do you envision using Python or
>> something else suitable to enable end-users write custom reports (more)
>> easily?
>> 
>> 
>> Sincerely,
>> Gour
>> 
> 
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