Difference between revisions of "List of external software interfaces"

Revision as of 10:43, 23 February 2006

Warning: this article is descriptive, and neither normative nor authoritative.

This article lists past and present external software interfaces of GnuCash, and suggests possible additional interfaces.

Current interfaces

• QIF/OFX import
  • from files
    • CSV/TSV/XLS/ODS → QIF conversion (see FAQ#Q: How do I convert from CSV, TSV, XLS (Excel), or SXC (!OpenOffice.org Calc) to a QIF?)
    • OFX
      • libofx
  • OFX Direct Connect via AqBanking library http://www.aquamaniac.de/aqbanking. Aqbanking has also additional import/export facilities which are currently not yet implemented in gnucash.
• direct data manipulation
  • XML
    • "The new [1.6] version uses XML (making it much easier to write independent tools to manipulate GnuCash files) …" [GnuCash 1.6 User Manual]
    • "risky and not recommended" (see FAQ)
  • PostgreSQL
• QOF access to the data file. I hope http://qof.sourceforge.net does offer some documentation about how this is intended to work, but I don't understand it so far.
• custom reports (Scheme)
• Finance::Quote

Legacy/unsupported interfaces

These interfaces were supported in prior versions of GnuCash.

• RPC (bitrotted [1])
• Perl bindings (bitrotted [2])

Prospective interfaces

The main place for submitting enhancement requests is the Bugzilla database. Feel free to collect anything you want here on this page, especially any kind of overview, but please keep in mind that single issues are followed by the developers in Bugzilla much more closely.

• CORBA, to communicate with a running GnuCash instance. E.g., a running GnuCash incarnates a CORBA object of type:

interface GnuCash // simplified
{
  exception GnuCashException

  typedef string Guid;

  struct Split
  {
    Guid id;
    boolean reconciledState;
    string value;
    string quantity;
    Guid account;
  };

  typedef sequence<Split> SplitSeq;

  struct Transaction
  {
    Guid id;
    string datePosted;
    string dateEntered;
    string description;
    SplitSeq splits;
  };

  void submitTransaction(in Transaction t)
    raises (GnuCashException);
};

• linkable library (see also WishList#Export an API)
  • for communicating with a running GnuCash instance
  • for manipulation of GnuCash database or XML file directly

See also

• WishList#Connecting with PalmOS