[GNC] File Format Documentation (Bug 777893)

[Derek Atkins]

Adrien Monteleone <adrien.monteleone at lusfiber.net> writes:

> Since .gnucash is not really proprietary or somehow a special format
> from XML then I agree, the extension should be .xml.

The benefit of using .gnucash is that the gnucash-xml file can be
auto-loaded into GnuCash and not a generic XML parser.

> Combine this with the fact that the sqlite version of the file ALSO
> uses the .gnucash extension can make for some confusion. At a glance,

Confusion for whom?  A user shouldn't really care whether a gnucash data
file is XML or SQLite -- it should just work.  The benefit of both being
named .gnucash is that the user doesn't need to be told "back up *this*
filename if you're using XML, and back up this *other* filename if
you're using SQL".  Instead, we can just say "back up XXX.gnucash" and
it just works.

> you can’t tell what the format is. You can’t even tell until you try
> to open it with something other than GnuCash. (or you notice that
> GnuCash doesn’t offer a Save option) The only reason I know which is
> which is I had to use filename.xml.gnucash to tell them apart. That’s
> a usability bug in my opinion. I don’t know how hard that is to
> change, but I’d support the move.

Why would you want to open it in something else?  Why should we care
about supporting that?

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-derek

-- 
       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
       Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
       URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
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