[GNC] Is there a way to handle same-named GnuCash files sensibly?

[Adrien Monteleone]

So you've chosen an organization method that creates the problem but 
then ask for how to avoid it? The answer seems pretty obvious to me:

Don't start a new file each year.

But before that, to your original question, what files exactly in 
~/.local/... are you concerned about? One rarely needs to mess with them.

Concerning the configuration settings, particularly reporting period, 
that problem too goes away with a single file rather than one for each year.


What is an example of what you'd expect/like to see instead?

And is something like 'building20.gnucash' really that clumsy?

How about 'building_20.gnucash' or 'building-20.gnucash'?

Are 2 or 3 characters really that much longer? (4 or 5 if whole year is 
used)

How is adding the year to the name 'redundant'—because it is already in 
a directory name? How often do you look at directory/file lists anyway?

You've chosen to 'artificially' break up your GnuCash file, then 
stripped out most unique identifying information, and now you see the 
problem but don't want to revisit those decisions.

One way or another you'll need to decide which is more important to you: 
  Your chosen method of organization, or the filename readability and 
length.

This isn't a 'GnuCash' problem. You could encounter this with *any* file 
type and app.

Regards,
Adrien

-p.s. I've done this very thing myself a few times trying to settle on 
the best method of organization. I ended up accepting dates in my file 
names, though of course I could edit the file meta to fix this if 
desired and then clean up the names. I felt it better to keep the 
original crtime, which isn't readily viewable in a detailed listing anyway.

On 5/3/22 11:37 AM, Chris Green wrote:
> GnuCash names files in ~/.local/share/gnucash/books according to the
> filename of the GnuCash data file.  This is a bit of a problem for me
> because I expect to be able to have multiple GnuCash data files with
> the same name in different places.
> 
> For example I keep church building accounts in a file called
> 'building.gnucash' with the accounts for each year in a different
> sub-directory of my church accounts system.
> 
> I.e. there are:-
> 
>      /home/chris/pcc/2020/building.gnucash
>      /home/chris/pcc/2021/building.gnucash
>      /home/chris/pcc/2022/building.gnucash
> 
> Is there any way around this problem?  As it is various configuration
> settings get changed as I move round my accounts, in particular the
> reporting period.
> 
> Keeping all the church's accounts, and correspondence and other files
> for one particular year makes sense for me (and the auditor!).
> 
> I *could* add the year to the GnuCash data file name but that does
> make it rather long and clumsy, and it makes for redundant information
> which Mr Codd doesn't like! :-)
>