[GNC] Bug found in Stock Assistant with negative capital gain

[Chris Howard]

Hi all,

How do I go about getting a Bugzilla account so I can log this bug?

Thanks,

Chris



On Wednesday, 16 September 2026 at 18:03, Chris via gnucash-user <gnucash-user at gnucash.org> wrote:

> Hi all,
> 
> I found a bug in Gnucash 5.16 in the Stock Assistant.
> 
> When recording a stock sale with a capital loss using the Stock Transaction Assistant, entering the capital gain as a negative number (as per the instruction) can cause the assistant to incorrectly record the loss as a positive capital gain.
> 
> Steps to reproduce:
> 
> 1. Right click on a stock account select Stock Assistant
> 2. Select Sell, enter any amounts for number of stock and stock value
> 3. Continue to the Capital Gain/Loss page and select an Income account for capital gains
> 4. Type a negative value normally, e.g. -101.54 then complete the assistant.
> 5. The capital gains Income account receives a credit of 101.54 rather than a debit of 101.54
> 
> Bug source:
> 
> Looking at https://code.gnucash.org/docs/STABLE/assistant-stock-transaction_8cpp_source.html
> 
> StockTransactionEntry::set_value()
> toggles m_debit_side each time it receives a negative value:
> 
> if (gnc_numeric_negative_p (amount))
> {
> m_value = gnc_numeric_neg(amount);
> m_debit_side = !m_debit_side;
> }
> 
> GncAmountEdit connects value_changed_cb to the GTK "changed" signal, so set_value() is called repeatedly on every keystroke while a negative number is being typed.
> 
> Each valid negative intermediate value toggles m_debit_side again which means that sometimes the amount is then incorrectly entered as a positive instead of a negative.
> 
> Fix:
> 
> m_debit side should be set to true in the if statement above instead of being toggled.
> 
> Temp workaround:
> 
> Enter 101.54 as a positive value first, then move the cursor to the beginning and type the minus sign. With this method m_debit_side is toggled only once and the Stock Assistant creates the transaction correctly.
> I don't have a Bugzilla account but if someone can create one for me, I could post the bug report there.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Chris Howard
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