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;doc: add Commodity section, update Amounts & Declaring Commodities (#1532)

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Simon Michael 2021-04-16 12:00:00 -10:00
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@ -1764,17 +1764,13 @@ Amounts have a number (the "quantity"):
1
..and usually a currency or commodity name (the "commodity"). This is
a symbol, word, or phrase, to the left or right of the quantity, with
or without a separating space:
..and usually a currency symbol or commodity name (more on this
below), to the left or right of the quantity, with or without a
separating space:
$1
4000 AAPL
If the commodity name contains spaces, numbers, or punctuation, it
must be enclosed in double quotes:
3 "no. 42 green apples"
3 "green apples"
Amounts can be preceded by a minus sign (or a plus sign, though plus is the default),
The sign can be written before or after a left-side commodity symbol:
@ -1818,33 +1814,63 @@ Are these digit group marks or decimal marks ?
If you don't tell it otherwise, hledger will assume both of the above are decimal marks,
parsing both numbers as 1.
To prevent confusion and undetected typos,
especially if your data contains digit group marks,
we recommend you explicitly declare the decimal mark (and optionally a digit group mark),
for each commodity, using `commodity` directives (described below):
<!-- especially if your data contains digit group marks, -->
we recommend adding `commodity` directives at the top of your journal
file to explicitly declare the decimal mark (and optionally a digit
group mark) for each commodity. Read on for more about this.
### Commodity
Amounts in hledger have both a "quantity", which is a signed decimal
number, and a "commodity", which is a currency symbol, stock ticker,
or any word or phrase describing something you are tracking.
If the commodity name contains non-letters (spaces, numbers, or
punctuation), you must always write it inside double quotes (`"green
apples"`, `"ABC123"`).
If you write just a bare number, that too will have a commodity, with
name `""`; we call that the "no-symbol commodity".
Actually, hledger combines these single-commodity amounts into more
powerful multi-commodity amounts, which are what it works with most of
the time. A multi-commodity amount could be, eg: `1 USD, 2 EUR, 3.456 TSLA`.
In practice, you will only see multi-commodity amounts in hledger's
output; you can't write them directly in the journal file.
<!-- (Though an omitted balancing amount can be multi-commodity.) -->
(If you are writing scripts or working with hledger's internals, these
are the `Amount` and `MixedAmount` types.)
### Commodity directives
You can add `commodity` directives to the journal, preferably at the
top, to declare your commodities and help with number parsing (see
above) and display (see below). These are optional, but recommended.
They are described in more detail in JOURNAL FORMAT -> [Declaring
commodities](#declaring-commodities). Here's a quick example:
```journal
# number formats for $, EUR, INR and the no-symbol commodity:
# number format and display style for $, EUR, INR and the no-symbol commodity:
commodity $1,000.00
commodity EUR 1.000,00
commodity INR 9,99,99,999.00
commodity 1 000 000.9455
```
Note, `commodity` directives declare both the number format for parsing input,
and the display style for showing output. For the former, they are position-sensitive,
affecting only following amounts, so commodity directives should be at the top of your journal file.
This is discussed more on [#793](https://github.com/simonmichael/hledger/issues/793).
<a name="amount-display-style"></a>
### Commodity display style
For the amounts in each commodity, hledger chooses a consistent display style to use in most reports.
(Except for [price amounts](#prices), which are always displayed as written). <!-- ? -->
The display style is inferred as follows.
(Except for [price amounts](#prices), which are always displayed as written,
and the [`print`](#print) command, which displays all amounts as written).
First, if a [default commodity](#default-commodity) is declared with `D`,
this commodity and its style is applied to any no-symbol amounts in the journal.
A commodity's display style is inferred as follows.
First, if a [default commodity](#default-commodity) is declared with
`D`, this commodity and its style is applied to any no-symbol amounts
in the journal.
Then each commodity's style is inferred from one of the following, in order of preference:
@ -2317,43 +2343,49 @@ payee Whole Foods
## Declaring commodities
The `commodity` directive has several functions:
You can use `commodity` directives to declare your commodities.
In fact the `commodity` directive performs several functions at once:
1. It declares commodities which may be used in the journal.
This is enforced in [strict mode](#strict-mode), providing more error-checking.
This can optionally be enforced, providing useful error checking.
(Cf [strict mode](#strict-mode))
2. It declares what decimal mark character (period or comma) to expect when parsing
input - useful to disambiguate international number formats in your
data. (Without this, hledger will parse both `1,000` and `1.000`
as 1).
2. It declares which decimal mark character (period or comma), to
expect when parsing input - useful to disambiguate international
number formats in your data. Without this, hledger will parse both
`1,000` and `1.000` as 1.
(Cf [Amounts](#amounts))
3. It declares a commodity's [display style](#commodity-display-style)
in output - decimal and digit group marks, number of decimal places,
symbol placement etc.
3. It declares how to render the commodity's amounts when displaying
output - the decimal mark, any digit group marks, the number of
decimal places, symbol placement and so on.
(Cf [Commodity display style](#commodity-display-style))
You are likely to run into one of the problems solved by commodity
directives, sooner or later, so it's a good idea to just always use
them to declare your commodities.
You will run into one of the problems solved by commodity directives
sooner or later, so we recommend using them, for robust and
predictable parsing and display.
A commodity directive is just the word `commodity`,
followed by a sample [amount](#amounts) in some commodity.
It may be written on a single line, like this:
Generally you should put them at the top of your journal file
(since for function 2, they affect only following amounts,
cf [#793](https://github.com/simonmichael/hledger/issues/793)).
A commodity directive is just the word `commodity` followed by a
sample [amount](#amounts), like this:
```journal
; commodity EXAMPLEAMOUNT
;commodity SAMPLEAMOUNT
; display AAAA amounts with the symbol on the right, space-separated,
; using period as decimal point, with four decimal places, and
; separating thousands with comma.
commodity 1,000.0000 AAAA
commodity $1000.00
commodity 1,000.0000 AAAA ; optional same-line comment
```
or on multiple lines, using the "format" subdirective. (In this case
the commodity symbol appears twice and should be the same in both places.):
It may also be written on multiple lines, and use the `format`
subdirective, as in Ledger. Note in this case the commodity symbol
appears twice; it must be the same in both places:
```journal
;commodity SYMBOL
; format EXAMPLEAMOUNT
; format SAMPLEAMOUNT
; display indian rupees with currency name on the left,
; thousands, lakhs and crores comma-separated,
@ -2363,12 +2395,21 @@ commodity INR
```
Remember that if the commodity symbol contains spaces, numbers, or
punctuation, it must be enclosed in double quotes (cf [Amounts](#amounts)).
punctuation, it must be enclosed in double quotes (cf [Commodity](#commodity)).
The amount's quantity does not matter; only the format is significant.
It must include a decimal mark - either a period or a comma - followed
by 0 or more decimal digits.
A few more examples:
```journal
# number formats for $, EUR, INR and the no-symbol commodity:
commodity $1,000.00
commodity EUR 1.000,00
commodity INR 9,99,99,999.0
commodity 1 000 000.
```
Note hledger normally uses
[banker's rounding](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bankers_rounding),
so 0.5 displayed with zero decimal digits is "0".