[GNC] AutoHotKey: Date Arithmetic Example

[Geoff]

Hi Tom

Yes, AutoHotKey is quite a powerful scripting language and has some 
basic date handling functionality built in.  Here is a trivial example 
as a demonstration, but note that it fails for cases where the day of 
the month is greater than 28.  This is easy to fix, but I don't know the 
specific rules imposed by your bank.

See attached screenshot before reading any further.

=====
Loop, 12 {
     start_date := 2022 . SubStr(0 . A_Index, -1, 2) . 15

     month := SubStr(start_date, 5, 2) - 16

     prior_date := SubStr(start_date, 1, 4)
         + floor((month - 1) / 12)
         . SubStr(0 . (month < 0
                 ? mod(month, 12) + 12
                 : mod(month - 1, 12) + 1)
             , -1 ,2)
         . SubStr(start_date, 7)

     FormatTime, show_start, %start_date%, ddd dd-MMM-yyyy
     FormatTime, show_prior, %prior_date%, ddd dd-MMM-yyyy
     results := results
         . "Start: " . show_start
         . "`nPrior: " . show_prior
         . "`n`n"
}
MsgBox,, AutoHotKey: Subtract 16 Months Example for Tom, %results%
=====

The syntax is a bit quirky at first, but the documentation is good and 
if you can drive Raku you can certainly drive AHK ;--)


HOWEVER, as it seems that you are bank scraping, you should consider 
Selenium which is a very useful and extremely powerful tool for web 
browser automation: https://www.selenium.dev/, *plus* it can be driven 
from a variety of languages including Python, Perl, and (according to 
Google) Raku:
https://raku.land/github:azawawi/Selenium::WebDriver


Hope this helps.

Regards

Geoff
=====

On 15/08/2022 12:50 am, Tom Browder wrote:
> On Sun, Aug 14, 2022 at 00:40 Geoff <cleanoutmyshed at gmail.com 
> <mailto:cleanoutmyshed at gmail.com>> wrote:
> 
>     Hi Jim
> 
>     I don't have any experience manipulating GnuCash XML files, but in
>     principle what you want to do should work, although it does void your
>     GnuCash warranty.
> 
>     However, if you are going to all this effort you may find it more
>     worthwhile to invest your time in learning how to use a general purpose
>     automation tool.  This approach has two advantages over data
>     manipulation:
>     (1) Automation drives the GnuCash GUI and thus protects you from
>     accidental data corruption.
>     (2) You will be able to use your new automation skills to automate any
>     subsequent GnuCash tasks, for example loading historical
>     transactions to
>     your 130 securities.
> 
>     For Windows, check out:
>     AutoHotKey https://www.autohotkey.com/ <https://www.autohotkey.com/>
> 
> 
> Geoff, that looks very interesting, thanks for the link. I do most of my 
> work on Linux, but I do have to do some things on Windows (TL;DR), so 
> this is very useful.
> 
> One of the things I'm not sure about is how powerful the script is. For 
> instance, can it determine the date for 16 months before the current 
> date? That's one of the requirements for one of my banks earliest date 
> of data retrieval. And one has to start over again for each different 
> account.
> 
> If it can't, then I will use the power of Raku to regenerate the 
> autohotkey script for the current date.
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> -Tom
> 
> P.S. Is there a spot on the Wiki to list things like Geoff's suggestion 
> and flycatcher's program? If not, I will be glad to start 
> one--suggestions welcomed.
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Loop, 12 {
    start_date := 2022 . SubStr(0 . A_Index, -1 ,2) . 15
    
    month := SubStr(start_date, 5, 2) - 16

    prior_date := SubStr(start_date, 1, 4)
        + floor((month - 1) / 12)
        . SubStr(0 . (month < 0
                ? mod(month, 12) + 12
                : mod(month - 1, 12) + 1)
            , -1 ,2)
        . SubStr(start_date, 7)

    FormatTime, show_start, %start_date%, ddd dd-MMM-yyyy
    FormatTime, show_prior, %prior_date%, ddd dd-MMM-yyyy
    results := results
        . "Start: " . show_start
        . "`nPrior: " . show_prior
        . "`n`n"
}
MsgBox,, AutoHotKey: Subtract 16 Months Example for Tom, %results%