This is hledger-web.info, produced by makeinfo version 7.0.1 from stdin.

INFO-DIR-SECTION User Applications
START-INFO-DIR-ENTRY
* hledger-web: (hledger-web).  Web UI/API for the hledger accounting tool.
END-INFO-DIR-ENTRY


File: hledger-web.info,  Node: Top,  Next: OPTIONS,  Up: (dir)

hledger-web(1)
**************

hledger-web - robust, friendly plain text accounting (Web version)

   ‘hledger-web [OPTIONS] # run temporarily & browse’
‘hledger-web --serve [OPTIONS] # run without stopping’
‘hledger-web --serve-api [OPTIONS] # run JSON server only’
‘hledger web -- [OPTIONS] [QUERYARGS]’ # start from hledger

   This manual is for hledger’s web interface, version 1.29.99.  See
also the hledger manual for common concepts and file formats.

   hledger is a robust, user-friendly, cross-platform set of programs
for tracking money, time, or any other commodity, using double-entry
accounting and a simple, editable file format.  hledger is inspired by
and largely compatible with ledger(1), and largely interconvertible with
beancount(1).

   hledger-web is a simple web application for browsing and adding
transactions.  It provides a more user-friendly UI than the hledger CLI
or hledger-ui TUI, showing more at once (accounts, the current account
register, balance charts) and allowing history-aware data entry,
interactive searching, and bookmarking.

   hledger-web also lets you share a journal with multiple users, or
even the public web.  There is no access control, so if you need that
you should put it behind a suitable web proxy.  As a small protection
against data loss when running an unprotected instance, it writes a
numbered backup of the main journal file (only) on every edit.

   Like hledger, it reads data from one or more files in journal,
timeclock, timedot, or CSV format.  The default file is
‘.hledger.journal’ in your home directory; this can be overridden with
one or more ‘-f FILE’ options, or the ‘LEDGER_FILE’ environment
variable.  For more about this see hledger(1).

   hledger-web can be run in three modes:

   • Transient mode (the default): your default web browser will be
     opened to show the app if possible, and the app exits automatically
     after two minutes of inactivity (no requests received and no open
     browser windows viewing it).

   • With ‘--serve’: the app runs without stopping, and without opening
     a browser.

   • With ‘--serve-api’: only the JSON API is served.

   In all cases hledger-web runs as a foreground process, logging
requests to stdout.

* Menu:

* OPTIONS::
* PERMISSIONS::
* EDITING UPLOADING DOWNLOADING::
* RELOADING::
* JSON API::
* DEBUG OUTPUT::
* ENVIRONMENT::
* FILES::
* BUGS::


File: hledger-web.info,  Node: OPTIONS,  Next: PERMISSIONS,  Prev: Top,  Up: Top

1 OPTIONS
*********

Command-line options and arguments may be used to set an initial filter
on the data.  These filter options are not shown in the web UI, but it
will be applied in addition to any search query entered there.

   Note: if invoking hledger-web as a hledger subcommand, write ‘--’
before options, as shown in the synopsis above.

‘--serve’

     serve and log requests, don’t browse or auto-exit after timeout
‘--serve-api’

     like –serve, but serve only the JSON web API, without the
     server-side web UI
‘--host=IPADDR’

     listen on this IP address (default: 127.0.0.1)
‘--port=PORT’

     listen on this TCP port (default: 5000)
‘--socket=SOCKETFILE’

     use a unix domain socket file to listen for requests instead of a
     TCP socket.  Implies ‘--serve’.  It can only be used if the
     operating system can provide this type of socket.
‘--base-url=URL’

     set the base url (default: http://IPADDR:PORT). Note: affects url
     generation but not route parsing.  Can be useful if running behind
     a reverse web proxy that does path rewriting.
‘--file-url=URL’

     set the static files url (default: BASEURL/static).  hledger-web
     normally serves static files itself, but if you wanted to serve
     them from another server for efficiency, you would set the url with
     this.
‘--capabilities=CAP[,CAP..]’

     enable the view, add, and/or manage capabilities (default:
     view,add)
‘--capabilities-header=HTTPHEADER’

     read capabilities to enable from a HTTP header, like
     X-Sandstorm-Permissions (default: disabled)
‘--test’

     run hledger-web’s tests and exit.  hspec test runner args may
     follow a –, eg: hledger-web –test – –help

   hledger input options:

‘-f FILE --file=FILE’

     use a different input file.  For stdin, use - (default:
     ‘$LEDGER_FILE’ or ‘$HOME/.hledger.journal’)
‘--rules-file=RULESFILE’

     Conversion rules file to use when reading CSV (default: FILE.rules)
‘--separator=CHAR’

     Field separator to expect when reading CSV (default: ’,’)
‘--alias=OLD=NEW’

     rename accounts named OLD to NEW
‘--anon’

     anonymize accounts and payees
‘--pivot FIELDNAME’

     use some other field or tag for the account name
‘-I --ignore-assertions’

     disable balance assertion checks (note: does not disable balance
     assignments)
‘-s --strict’

     do extra error checking (check that all posted accounts are
     declared)

   hledger reporting options:

‘-b --begin=DATE’

     include postings/txns on or after this date (will be adjusted to
     preceding subperiod start when using a report interval)
‘-e --end=DATE’

     include postings/txns before this date (will be adjusted to
     following subperiod end when using a report interval)
‘-D --daily’

     multiperiod/multicolumn report by day
‘-W --weekly’

     multiperiod/multicolumn report by week
‘-M --monthly’

     multiperiod/multicolumn report by month
‘-Q --quarterly’

     multiperiod/multicolumn report by quarter
‘-Y --yearly’

     multiperiod/multicolumn report by year
‘-p --period=PERIODEXP’

     set start date, end date, and/or reporting interval all at once
     using period expressions syntax
‘--date2’

     match the secondary date instead (see command help for other
     effects)
‘--today=DATE’

     override today’s date (affects relative smart dates, for
     tests/examples)
‘-U --unmarked’

     include only unmarked postings/txns (can combine with -P or -C)
‘-P --pending’

     include only pending postings/txns
‘-C --cleared’

     include only cleared postings/txns
‘-R --real’

     include only non-virtual postings
‘-NUM --depth=NUM’

     hide/aggregate accounts or postings more than NUM levels deep
‘-E --empty’

     show items with zero amount, normally hidden (and vice-versa in
     hledger-ui/hledger-web)
‘-B --cost’

     convert amounts to their cost/selling amount at transaction time
‘-V --market’

     convert amounts to their market value in default valuation
     commodities
‘-X --exchange=COMM’

     convert amounts to their market value in commodity COMM
‘--value’

     convert amounts to cost or market value, more flexibly than
     -B/-V/-X
‘--infer-market-prices’

     use transaction prices (recorded with @ or @@) as additional market
     prices, as if they were P directives
‘--auto’

     apply automated posting rules to modify transactions.
‘--forecast’

     generate future transactions from periodic transaction rules, for
     the next 6 months or till report end date.  In hledger-ui, also
     make ordinary future transactions visible.
‘--commodity-style’

     Override the commodity style in the output for the specified
     commodity.  For example ’EUR1.000,00’.
‘--color=WHEN (or --colour=WHEN)’

     Should color-supporting commands use ANSI color codes in text
     output.  ’auto’ (default): whenever stdout seems to be a
     color-supporting terminal.  ’always’ or ’yes’: always, useful eg
     when piping output into ’less -R’.  ’never’ or ’no’: never.  A
     NO_COLOR environment variable overrides this.
‘--pretty[=WHEN]’

     Show prettier output, e.g.  using unicode box-drawing characters.
     Accepts ’yes’ (the default) or ’no’ (’y’, ’n’, ’always’, ’never’
     also work).  If you provide an argument you must use ’=’, e.g.
     ’–pretty=yes’.

   When a reporting option appears more than once in the command line,
the last one takes precedence.

   Some reporting options can also be written as query arguments.

   hledger help options:

‘-h --help’

     show general or COMMAND help
‘--man’

     show general or COMMAND user manual with man
‘--info’

     show general or COMMAND user manual with info
‘--version’

     show general or ADDONCMD version
‘--debug[=N]’

     show debug output (levels 1-9, default: 1)

   A @FILE argument will be expanded to the contents of FILE, which
should contain one command line option/argument per line.  (To prevent
this, insert a ‘--’ argument before.)

   By default the server listens on IP address 127.0.0.1, accessible
only to local requests.  You can use ‘--host’ to change this, eg ‘--host
0.0.0.0’ to listen on all configured addresses.

   Similarly, use ‘--port’ to set a TCP port other than 5000, eg if you
are running multiple hledger-web instances.

   Both of these options are ignored when ‘--socket’ is used.  In this
case, it creates an ‘AF_UNIX’ socket file at the supplied path and uses
that for communication.  This is an alternative way of running multiple
hledger-web instances behind a reverse proxy that handles authentication
for different users.  The path can be derived in a predictable way, eg
by using the username within the path.  As an example, ‘nginx’ as
reverse proxy can use the variable ‘$remote_user’ to derive a path from
the username used in a HTTP basic authentication.  The following
‘proxy_pass’ directive allows access to all ‘hledger-web’ instances that
created a socket in ‘/tmp/hledger/’:

  proxy_pass http://unix:/tmp/hledger/${remote_user}.socket;

   You can use ‘--base-url’ to change the protocol, hostname, port and
path that appear in hyperlinks, useful eg for integrating hledger-web
within a larger website.  The default is ‘http://HOST:PORT/’ using the
server’s configured host address and TCP port (or ‘http://HOST’ if PORT
is 80).

   With ‘--file-url’ you can set a different base url for static files,
eg for better caching or cookie-less serving on high performance
websites.


File: hledger-web.info,  Node: PERMISSIONS,  Next: EDITING UPLOADING DOWNLOADING,  Prev: OPTIONS,  Up: Top

2 PERMISSIONS
*************

By default, hledger-web allows anyone who can reach it to view the
journal and to add new transactions, but not to change existing data.

   You can restrict who can reach it by

   • setting the IP address it listens on (see ‘--host’ above).  By
     default it listens on 127.0.0.1, accessible to all users on the
     local machine.
   • putting it behind an authenticating proxy, using eg apache or nginx
   • custom firewall rules

   You can restrict what the users who reach it can do, by

   • using the ‘--capabilities=CAP[,CAP..]’ flag when you start it,
     enabling one or more of the following capabilities.  The default
     value is ‘view,add’:
        • ‘view’ - allows viewing the journal file and all included
          files
        • ‘add’ - allows adding new transactions to the main journal
          file
        • ‘manage’ - allows editing, uploading or downloading the main
          or included files

   • using the ‘--capabilities-header=HTTPHEADER’ flag to specify a HTTP
     header from which it will read capabilities to enable.  hledger-web
     on Sandstorm uses the X-Sandstorm-Permissions header to integrate
     with Sandstorm’s permissions.  This is disabled by default.


File: hledger-web.info,  Node: EDITING UPLOADING DOWNLOADING,  Next: RELOADING,  Prev: PERMISSIONS,  Up: Top

3 EDITING, UPLOADING, DOWNLOADING
*********************************

If you enable the ‘manage’ capability mentioned above, you’ll see a new
"spanner" button to the right of the search form.  Clicking this will
let you edit, upload, or download the journal file or any files it
includes.

   Note, unlike any other hledger command, in this mode you (or any
visitor) can alter or wipe the data files.

   Normally whenever a file is changed in this way, hledger-web saves a
numbered backup (assuming file permissions allow it, the disk is not
full, etc.)  hledger-web is not aware of version control systems,
currently; if you use one, you’ll have to arrange to commit the changes
yourself (eg with a cron job or a file watcher like entr).

   Changes which would leave the journal file(s) unparseable or
non-valid (eg with failing balance assertions) are prevented.
(Probably.  This needs re-testing.)


File: hledger-web.info,  Node: RELOADING,  Next: JSON API,  Prev: EDITING UPLOADING DOWNLOADING,  Up: Top

4 RELOADING
***********

hledger-web detects changes made to the files by other means (eg if you
edit it directly, outside of hledger-web), and it will show the new data
when you reload the page or navigate to a new page.  If a change makes a
file unparseable, hledger-web will display an error message until the
file has been fixed.

   (Note: if you are viewing files mounted from another machine, make
sure that both machine clocks are roughly in step.)


File: hledger-web.info,  Node: JSON API,  Next: DEBUG OUTPUT,  Prev: RELOADING,  Up: Top

5 JSON API
**********

In addition to the web UI, hledger-web also serves a JSON API that can
be used to get data or add new transactions.  If you want the JSON API
only, you can use the ‘--serve-api’ flag.  Eg:

$ hledger-web -f examples/sample.journal --serve-api
...

   You can get JSON data from these routes:

/version
/accountnames
/transactions
/prices
/commodities
/accounts
/accounttransactions/ACCOUNTNAME

   Eg, all account names in the journal (similar to the accounts
command).  (hledger-web’s JSON does not include newlines, here we use
python to prettify it):

$ curl -s http://127.0.0.1:5000/accountnames | python -m json.tool
[
    "assets",
    "assets:bank",
    "assets:bank:checking",
    "assets:bank:saving",
    "assets:cash",
    "expenses",
    "expenses:food",
    "expenses:supplies",
    "income",
    "income:gifts",
    "income:salary",
    "liabilities",
    "liabilities:debts"
]

   Or all transactions:

$ curl -s http://127.0.0.1:5000/transactions | python -m json.tool
[
    {
        "tcode": "",
        "tcomment": "",
        "tdate": "2008-01-01",
        "tdate2": null,
        "tdescription": "income",
        "tindex": 1,
        "tpostings": [
            {
                "paccount": "assets:bank:checking",
                "pamount": [
                    {
                        "acommodity": "$",
                        "aismultiplier": false,
                        "aprice": null,
...

   Most of the JSON corresponds to hledger’s data types; for details of
what the fields mean, see the Hledger.Data.Json haddock docs and click
on the various data types, eg Transaction.  And for a higher level
understanding, see the journal docs.

   In some cases there is outer JSON corresponding to a "Report" type.
To understand that, go to the Hledger.Web.Handler.MiscR haddock and look
at the source for the appropriate handler to see what it returns.  Eg
for ‘/accounttransactions’ it’s getAccounttransactionsR, returning a
"‘accountTransactionsReport ...’".  Looking up the haddock for that we
can see that /accounttransactions returns an AccountTransactionsReport,
which consists of a report title and a list of
AccountTransactionsReportItem (etc).

   You can add a new transaction to the journal with a PUT request to
‘/add’, if hledger-web was started with the ‘add’ capability (enabled by
default).  The payload must be the full, exact JSON representation of a
hledger transaction (partial data won’t do).  You can get sample JSON
from hledger-web’s ‘/transactions’ or ‘/accounttransactions’, or you can
export it with hledger-lib, eg like so:

.../hledger$ stack ghci hledger-lib
>>> writeJsonFile "txn.json" (head $ jtxns samplejournal)
>>> :q

   Here’s how it looks as of hledger-1.17 (remember, this JSON
corresponds to hledger’s Transaction and related data types):

{
    "tcomment": "",
    "tpostings": [
        {
            "pbalanceassertion": null,
            "pstatus": "Unmarked",
            "pamount": [
                {
                    "aprice": null,
                    "acommodity": "$",
                    "aquantity": {
                        "floatingPoint": 1,
                        "decimalPlaces": 10,
                        "decimalMantissa": 10000000000
                    },
                    "aismultiplier": false,
                    "astyle": {
                        "ascommodityside": "L",
                        "asdigitgroups": null,
                        "ascommodityspaced": false,
                        "asprecision": 2,
                        "asdecimalpoint": "."
                    }
                }
            ],
            "ptransaction_": "1",
            "paccount": "assets:bank:checking",
            "pdate": null,
            "ptype": "RegularPosting",
            "pcomment": "",
            "pdate2": null,
            "ptags": [],
            "poriginal": null
        },
        {
            "pbalanceassertion": null,
            "pstatus": "Unmarked",
            "pamount": [
                {
                    "aprice": null,
                    "acommodity": "$",
                    "aquantity": {
                        "floatingPoint": -1,
                        "decimalPlaces": 10,
                        "decimalMantissa": -10000000000
                    },
                    "aismultiplier": false,
                    "astyle": {
                        "ascommodityside": "L",
                        "asdigitgroups": null,
                        "ascommodityspaced": false,
                        "asprecision": 2,
                        "asdecimalpoint": "."
                    }
                }
            ],
            "ptransaction_": "1",
            "paccount": "income:salary",
            "pdate": null,
            "ptype": "RegularPosting",
            "pcomment": "",
            "pdate2": null,
            "ptags": [],
            "poriginal": null
        }
    ],
    "ttags": [],
    "tsourcepos": {
        "tag": "JournalSourcePos",
        "contents": [
            "",
            [
                1,
                1
            ]
        ]
    },
    "tdate": "2008-01-01",
    "tcode": "",
    "tindex": 1,
    "tprecedingcomment": "",
    "tdate2": null,
    "tdescription": "income",
    "tstatus": "Unmarked"
}

   And here’s how to test adding it with curl.  This should add a new
entry to your journal:

$ curl http://127.0.0.1:5000/add -X PUT -H 'Content-Type: application/json' --data-binary @txn.json


File: hledger-web.info,  Node: DEBUG OUTPUT,  Next: ENVIRONMENT,  Prev: JSON API,  Up: Top

6 DEBUG OUTPUT
**************

* Menu:

* Debug output::


File: hledger-web.info,  Node: Debug output,  Up: DEBUG OUTPUT

6.1 Debug output
================

You can add ‘--debug[=N]’ to the command line to log debug output.  N
ranges from 1 (least output, the default) to 9 (maximum output).
Typically you would start with 1 and increase until you are seeing
enough.  Debug output goes to stderr, interleaved with the requests
logged on stdout.  To capture debug output in a log file instead, you
can usually redirect stderr, eg:
‘hledger-web --debug=3 2>hledger-web.log’.


File: hledger-web.info,  Node: ENVIRONMENT,  Next: FILES,  Prev: DEBUG OUTPUT,  Up: Top

7 ENVIRONMENT
*************

*LEDGER_FILE* The journal file path when not specified with ‘-f’.

   On unix computers, the default value is: ‘~/.hledger.journal’.

   A more typical value is something like ‘~/finance/YYYY.journal’,
where ‘~/finance’ is a version-controlled finance directory and YYYY is
the current year.  Or, ‘~/finance/current.journal’, where
current.journal is a symbolic link to YYYY.journal.

   The usual way to set this permanently is to add a command to one of
your shell’s startup files (eg ‘~/.profile’):

export LEDGER_FILE=~/finance/current.journal`

   On some Mac computers, there is a more thorough way to set
environment variables, that will also affect applications started from
the GUI (eg, Emacs started from a dock icon): In
‘~/.MacOSX/environment.plist’, add an entry like:

{
  "LEDGER_FILE" : "~/finance/current.journal"
}

   For this to take effect you might need to ‘killall Dock’, or reboot.

   On Windows computers, the default value is probably
‘C:\Users\YOURNAME\.hledger.journal’.  You can change this by running a
command like this in a powershell window (let us know if you need to be
an Administrator, and if this persists across a reboot):

> setx LEDGER_FILE "C:\Users\MyUserName\finance\2021.journal"

   Or, change it in settings: see
https://www.java.com/en/download/help/path.html.


File: hledger-web.info,  Node: FILES,  Next: BUGS,  Prev: ENVIRONMENT,  Up: Top

8 FILES
*******

Reads data from one or more files in journal, timeclock, timedot, or CSV
format.  The default file is ‘.hledger.journal’ in your home directory;
this can be overridden with one or more ‘-f FILE’ options, or the
‘LEDGER_FILE’ environment variable.


File: hledger-web.info,  Node: BUGS,  Prev: FILES,  Up: Top

9 BUGS
******

‘-f-’ doesn’t work (hledger-web can’t read from stdin).

   Query arguments and some hledger options are ignored.

   Does not work in text-mode browsers.

   Does not work well on small screens.


Tag Table:
Node: Top225
Node: OPTIONS2727
Ref: #options2832
Node: PERMISSIONS10626
Ref: #permissions10765
Node: EDITING UPLOADING DOWNLOADING12023
Ref: #editing-uploading-downloading12204
Node: RELOADING13046
Ref: #reloading13180
Node: JSON API13613
Ref: #json-api13728
Node: DEBUG OUTPUT19260
Ref: #debug-output19385
Node: Debug output19412
Ref: #debug-output-119513
Node: ENVIRONMENT19938
Ref: #environment20058
Node: FILES21407
Ref: #files21507
Node: BUGS21767
Ref: #bugs21845

End Tag Table


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