[GNC] Use of symbol / in GnuCash

[Kalpesh Patel]

It also impacts your import if  you are specifying an account in the import. I used to use slash ('/') at one time but then I used to not keep strait with cd command (in both *NIX and Windows) so I reverted back to colon.

If slash is not in the name of the account then it will let you change it and all will be fine as other fields like description, etc., don't mind use of account separator character in their data. 

-----Original Message-----
From: Wm Tarr <wm at ilipsis.net> 
Sent: Monday, March 23, 2026 3:06 AM
To: gnucash-user at gnucash.org
Subject: Re: [GNC] Use of symbol / in GnuCash

I suspect (but don't know) there might be some confusion if one changed the account sep from : to / and had some account names that included /

Wm

On 2026-03-23 02:52, Stan Brown (using GC 4.14) wrote:
> On 2026-03-22 19:22, Ram Vilas Gupta wrote:
>> Can anybody tell me what is the use of / symbol in GnuCash?
>> Is it used in case of Liability / Assets accounts or in case of 
>> Income / Expenses accounts?
> No.
>
>> In both cases how it differs from : used to create a sub account?
>> However if it is not used in both cases; is there any other use of 
>> this symbol / ?
> The normal character to separate parent accounts from child accounts 
> is the colon, as in Assets:Investments:Vanguard. If you look at Edit » 
> Preferences » Accounts you will see "Separator Character" at the top 
> of the pane. Clicking the Help button leads to this text:
>
> ======================================================================
> == Separator Character: The account separator is the character that 
> separates a parent account from its sub-account, for example 
> Utilities:Electric. The default is a : (Colon), but you can also 
> select / (Slash), \ (Backslash), - (Dash) or . (Period), or any 
> Unicode character that isn't a letter or a number.
> ======================================================================
> ==
>
> The author didn't say so, at least not in this paragraph, but you 
> can't use the separator character in the name of an account.
>
> The only reason I can think of to change the separator to something 
> other than a colon is if you absolutely must have one or more account 
> names that contain colons.
>
> Stan Brown
> Tehachapi, CA, USA
> https://BrownMath.com
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