doc: faq: update the ledger answer, capitalise Ledger
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Simon Michael
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# Frequently asked questions
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## hledger and ledger
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## hledger and Ledger
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### How does hledger relate to ledger ?
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### How does hledger relate to Ledger ?
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hledger was inspired by and is partly a clone of John Wiegley's [ledger](http://ledger-cli.org),
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specifically Ledger 3.
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hledger was inspired by John Wiegley's
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[Ledger](http://ledger-cli.org). It is a friendly, mostly compatible
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rewrite of Ledger in Haskell, begun in 2007 (Ledger started in 2003),
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focussing on robustness, usability, ease of development, long-term
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maintainability, and new experiments such as the
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[web interface](manual.html#web). It currently lacks some of Ledger's
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power-user features and speed. hledger stays compatible with Ledger
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wherever possible, so that with a little care you can use both tools
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on the same data files.
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I was a happy ledger user and contributor for some time; I still use it
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occasionally. I wrote hledger because I wanted to develop financial tools
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in the Haskell programming language and ecosystem, whose advantages I
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believe are compelling. I have also tried to make hledger a little more
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simple, usable, installable, documented, appealing to collaborators, and
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to provide alternate user interfaces to make it more widely useful.
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Longer answer: I was a happy Ledger user and contributor for some
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time, then became too dissatisfied with bugs, missing/wrong
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documentation and a long period of stagnation. I also wanted to try
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implementing Ledger's brilliant design in the Haskell programming
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language and ecosystem, which I believe has compelling advantages. I
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try to build on Ledger's experience to make hledger easier to learn
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and use, better documented, more appealing to work on; and to provide
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alternate user interfaces (interactive, curses, web) to make it useful
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to more people.
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ledger has more advanced power-user features on the command-line
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(periodic and modifier transactions, budgets, capital gains tracking,
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value expressions, custom output formats, etc.) and it remains faster
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and more memory efficient (for now!)...
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hledger builds quickly and has a complete and accurate manual, an
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easier report query syntax, a data entry assistant, an optional web
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interface (which often works on Ledger files too), and multi-column
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balance reports. Ledger has additional power-user features (capital
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gains tracking, periodic and modifier transactions, budget reports,
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custom value expressions..) and it remains faster and more memory
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efficient (for now!).
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hledger builds faster and has an up-to-date manual and an optional web
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interface (which often works on ledger files too)...
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The two projects collaborate freely. For some time we shared the
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[#ledger](irc://irc.freenode.net/#ledger) IRC channel; in 2014 I added
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a dedicated [#hledger](irc://irc.freenode.net/#hledger) channel.
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I give back to Ledger by providing infrastructure
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([ledger-cli.org](http://ledger-cli.org)), IRC support, [LedgerTips](http://twitter.com/LedgerTips) etc.
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The two projects collaborate freely. We share the
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[#ledger](irc://irc.freenode.net/#ledger) IRC channel but have
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separate mail lists
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([hledger list](http://groups.google.com/group/hledger/),
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[ledger-cli list](http://groups.google.com/group/ledger-cli/)). I try
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to give back by providing infrastructure
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([ledger-cli.org](http://ledger-cli.org)) and IRC support.
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hledger stays compatible with ledger wherever possible, so that you
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can often use both tools on the same data file.
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Summary: hledger is a friendly, co-evolving, compatible rewrite of Ledger
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in Haskell, lacking some of ledger's power features and raw performance,
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and focussing on robustness, usability, ease of development, and
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experimental add-ons such as the [web interface](manual.html#web).
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### And ledger 4 ?
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### And Ledger 4 ?
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There is also a [ledger4](https://github.com/ledger/ledger4) on github; this is
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John's own rewrite of the core of
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ledger 3 in haskell. It's an early library prototype, not a usable tool.
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Ledger 3 in haskell. It's an early library prototype, not a usable tool.
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Perhaps some day hledger or something like it would use this as its foundation.
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### File format differences ?
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hledger's file format is mostly identical with ledger's, by design.
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hledger's file format is mostly identical with Ledger's, by design.
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Generally, it's easy to keep a journal file that works with both hledger
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and ledger if you avoid ledger's and hledger's more specialised syntax
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and Ledger if you avoid Ledger's and hledger's more specialised syntax
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(or keep it in separate files which you include only when appropriate).
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Some ledger syntax is parsed but ignored (such as
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Some Ledger syntax is parsed but ignored (such as
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[automated transactions](http://ledger-cli.org/3.0/doc/ledger3.html#Automated-Transactions), [periodic transactions](http://ledger-cli.org/3.0/doc/ledger3.html#Periodic-Transactions), and
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[historical prices](manual.html#historical-prices)).
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Some features are not currently parsed and will cause an error, eg
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ledger's more recent top-level directives. There can also be subtle
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Ledger's more recent top-level directives. There can also be subtle
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differences in parser behaviour, such as with
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[hledger comments](manual.html#comments) vs [ledger comments](http://ledger-cli.org/3.0/doc/ledger3.html#Commenting-on-your-Journal),
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[hledger comments](manual.html#comments) vs [Ledger comments](http://ledger-cli.org/3.0/doc/ledger3.html#Commenting-on-your-Journal),
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or [balance assertions](manual.html#assertions-and-ordering).
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### Feature differences ?
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hledger mimics a subset of [ledger 3.x](http://ledger-cli.org), and adds some features of its own.
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hledger mimics a subset of [Ledger 3.x](http://ledger-cli.org), and adds some features of its own.
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We currently support:
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- ledger's journal format, mostly
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- Ledger's journal format, mostly
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- csv format
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- timelog format
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- regular journal transactions
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@ -102,7 +103,7 @@ And we add these commands:
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### Option/command differences ?
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ledger options and commands not supported include:
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Ledger options and commands not supported include:
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```
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Basic options:
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-o, --output FILE write output to FILE
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@ -160,7 +161,7 @@ entry DATE PAYEE AMT output a derived entry, based on the arguments
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### Other functionality differences ?
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- hledger recognises description and negative patterns by "desc:"
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and "not:" prefixes, unlike ledger 3's free-form parser
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and "not:" prefixes, unlike Ledger 3's free-form parser
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- hledger does not require a space between command-line flags and their values,
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eg `-fFILE` works as well as `-f FILE`
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@ -191,28 +192,28 @@ entry DATE PAYEE AMT output a derived entry, based on the arguments
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- hledger's default commodity directive (D) sets the commodity to be
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used for subsequent commodityless amounts, and also sets that
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commodity's display settings if such an amount is the first
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seen. ledger uses D only for commodity display settings and for the
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seen. Ledger uses D only for commodity display settings and for the
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entry command.
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- hledger generates a description for timelog sessions, instead of
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taking it from the clock-out entry
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- hledger's [include directive](manual.html#including-other-files) does not support
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shell glob patterns (eg `include *.journal` ), which ledger does.
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shell glob patterns (eg `include *.journal` ), which Ledger does.
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- when checking [balance assertions](manual.html#balance-assertions)
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hledger sorts the account's postings first by date and then (for
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postings with the same date) by parse order. ledger goes strictly by
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postings with the same date) by parse order. Ledger goes strictly by
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parse order.
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- ledger allows amounts to have a
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- Ledger allows amounts to have a
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[fixed lot price](manual.html#fixed-lot-prices) and a regular price in any
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order (and uses whichever appears first). hledger requires the fixed
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lot price to come last (and ignores it).
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### Implementation differences ?
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ledger is written in C++, whereas hledger is written in [Haskell](http://haskell.org).
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Ledger is written in C++, whereas hledger is written in [Haskell](http://haskell.org).
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Haskell is a highly regarded up-and-coming programming language that enables
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a coding style known as pure functional programming, offering the
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promise of more bug-free and maintainable software built in fewer
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