[GNC] GNUCash XML format compatibility

[Derek Atkins]

Colin Law <clanlaw at gmail.com> writes:

> On Mon, 10 Feb 2020 at 15:21, Wirawan Purwanto <wirawan0 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Hi David, thanks for clarification. For every major release (either
>> 2.x or 3.x series), is there a guarantee for file format
>> compatibility?
>
> Upwards, yes I believe so.  Any migration necessary would be handled
> by gnucash itself.  There is no guarantee that a 3.x file will work in
> 2.x though in practice it may be ok.

First, note that we changed the numbering scheme between 2.x and 3.x.
This means that 2.0, 2.2, 2.4, and 2.6 are all *major* releases, with
minor releases denoted in the third number.  Whereas 3.x is the major
release and 3.0, 3.1, etc. are all the minor releases.

We try to guarantee one-major-release backwards.  So e.g. 3.x will be
readable by 2.6.21 (the latest 2.6 release), but we don't guarantee
anything with older major releases (e.g. 2.4.x).

We also try hard to guarantee forward release compatibility, so 3.x
should be able to read 2.6, 2.4, and probably even 2.2 (or older) data
files.

Note, however, that sometimes there are new features that by definition
will be incompatible.  We also try to make those features optional, so
you only make your data file unreadable by older version if you use
those new-in-X features.

Hope this helps,

> Colin

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-derek

-- 
       Derek Atkins                 617-623-3745
       derek at ihtfp.com             www.ihtfp.com
       Computer and Internet Security Consultant