[GNC] Importing stock prices from a CSV file

[john]

> On Oct 2, 2023, at 01:46, flywire <flywire0 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> While importing csv files is only really explained in the manual
> (not the guide) in terms of transactions, there is a lot of supporting
https://www.gnucash.org/docs/v5/C/gnucash-manual/trans-import.html#trans-import-csv
> 
> 
> information for the Price Import Assistant in
> https://www.gnucash.org/docs/v5/C/gnucash-manual/tool-price.html and
> https://www.gnucash.org/docs/v5/C/gnucash-manual/tool-security-edit.html
> 
> The term security seems to be used interchangeably (ie it's not a subset)
> with commodity and a symbol is a property of a commodity.
> 
>   -
> 
>   *Commodity: *A commodity is something of value that is easily tradeable
>   or sellable; for example, currencies, stocks, bonds, grain, copper, and oil
>   are all commodities.
> 
> https://www.gnucash.org/docs/v5/C/gnucash-manual/tool-security-edit.html
> clearly describes Securities types are currency, fund, listing stock
> exchange, or a user defined type. It seems some user defined types, for
> example grain, would turn this into a commodity. It conflicts with the
> second sentence below:
> 
>   -
> 
> 
> *Security: The Security/commodity being priced. The display is sorted by
>   the Namespace that the individual securities are listed on. *
>   -
> 
>   *Symbol:* Indicates the symbol or abbreviation for the commodity. This
>   is usually the ticker symbol (for stocks) or other unique abbreviation for
>   the commodity. If the commodity is traded on any public exchange, it is
>   important to use the same identifier used on that exchange. For national
>   currencies the symbol is the ISO-4217 currency code.
>   -
> 
>   *Namespace:* What is a reasonable description of this group [of
>   commodities ??] ?  The only reference to Namespace in the documentation is
>   quoted above but referring to a group of stock by listing exchange is too
>   restrictive.

Namespace is the better name for security type. The Security Editor manual page is out of date, we've removed the hard-coded namespaces FUND, AMEX, ASX, EUREX, NASDAQ, and NYSE from the program; they seemed to be more confusing than helpful because they obscured that users could create their own.

Regards,
John Ralls