[GNC] Should the gnc-fq-* helper scripts be invoked as commands, or as an arg to perl?

Jim DeLaHunt list+gnucash at jdlh.com
Mon Jun 14 02:43:03 EDT 2021


Thank you for your comments and encouragement, Chris!

On 2021-06-13 22:42, Chris Good wrote:
> Thanks for contributing to the documentation!
> I think:
> perl -w gnc-fq-dump currency USD EUR
> is going to confuse non-technical people just as much.
>
> And using
> /Path/To/Perl/perl -w /Path/To/HelperScripts/gnc-fq-dump currency USD EUR
> for every example is unnecessarily complicated.

Oh, I certainly don't advocate using the complex form for every example. 
It just needs to be explained once, so that people can figure out how to 
convert the simpler form, in the examples, to the full form which 
actually works.

And in any case, "/Path/To/Perl/perl" is against the thrust of this 
discussion. GnuCash seems to use "perl" without a path, and I think so 
should the examples.


> I suggest you just add a section at the start of
> https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/index.php?title=Online_Quotes#Helper_Scripts
> that gives explicit instructions and examples for Linux and macOS like it
> current does for
> Windows.
> Or maybe the later examples should all be stated to be for Linux and have
> specific instructions for Windows and macOS at the start of
> Helper_Scripts...
>
> I'm pretty sure prefixing commands with the setting of environment variables
> (e.g. XYZ=abc command) does not work in Windows.
Interesting. How does one do "gnc-fq-dump currency" on Windows? How does 
one provide the AlphaVantage key?
> Running the helper scripts
> I'm open to any better suggestions.

My first step is taking an overall look at the wiki page 
https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Online_Quotes to see how best to work with 
what is there.

Best regards,
      —Jim DeLaHunt






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