844 lines
36 KiB
Plaintext
844 lines
36 KiB
Plaintext
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hledger_journal(5) hledger User Manuals hledger_journal(5)
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NAME
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Journal - hledger's default file format, representing a General Journal
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DESCRIPTION
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hledger's usual data source is a plain text file containing journal
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entries in hledger journal format. This file represents a standard
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accounting general journal. I use file names ending in .journal, but
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that's not required. The journal file contains a number of transaction
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entries, each describing a transfer of money (or any commodity) between
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two or more named accounts, in a simple format readable by both hledger
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and humans.
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hledger's journal format is a compatible subset, mostly, of ledger's
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journal format, so hledger can work with compatible ledger journal
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files as well. It's safe, and encouraged, to run both hledger and
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ledger on the same journal file, eg to validate the results you're get-
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ting.
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You can use hledger without learning any more about this file; just use
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the add or web commands to create and update it. Many users, though,
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also edit the journal file directly with a text editor, perhaps
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assisted by the helper modes for emacs or vim.
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Here's an example:
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; A sample journal file. This is a comment.
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2008/01/01 income ; <- transaction's first line starts in column 0, contains date and description
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assets:bank:checking $1 ; <- posting lines start with whitespace, each contains an account name
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income:salary $-1 ; followed by at least two spaces and an amount
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2008/06/01 gift
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assets:bank:checking $1 ; <- at least two postings in a transaction
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income:gifts $-1 ; <- their amounts must balance to 0
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2008/06/02 save
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assets:bank:saving $1
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assets:bank:checking ; <- one amount may be omitted; here $-1 is inferred
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2008/06/03 eat & shop ; <- description can be anything
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expenses:food $1
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expenses:supplies $1 ; <- this transaction debits two expense accounts
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assets:cash ; <- $-2 inferred
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2008/10/01 take a loan
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assets:bank:checking $1
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liabilities:debts $-1
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2008/12/31 * pay off ; <- an optional * or ! after the date means "cleared" (or anything you want)
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liabilities:debts $1
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assets:bank:checking
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FILE FORMAT
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Transactions
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Transactions are movements of some quantity of commodities between
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named accounts. Each transaction is represented by a journal entry
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beginning with a simple date in column 0. This can be followed by any
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of the following, separated by spaces:
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o (optional) a status character (empty, !, or *)
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o (optional) a transaction code (any short number or text, enclosed in
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parentheses)
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o (optional) a transaction description (any remaining text until end of
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line or a semicolon)
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o (optional) a transaction comment (any remaining text following a
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semicolon until end of line)
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Then comes zero or more (but usually at least 2) indented lines repre-
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senting...
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Postings
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A posting is an addition of some amount to, or removal of some amount
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from, an account. Each posting line begins with at least one space or
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tab (2 or 4 spaces is common), followed by:
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o (optional) a status character (empty, !, or *), followed by a space
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o (required) an account name (any text, optionally containing single
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spaces, until end of line or a double space)
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o (optional) two or more spaces or tabs followed by an amount.
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Positive amounts are being added to the account, negative amounts are
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being removed.
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The amounts within a transaction must always sum up to zero. As a con-
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venience, one amount may be left blank; it will be inferred so as to
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balance the transaction.
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Be sure to note the unusual two-space delimiter between account name
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and amount. This makes it easy to write account names containing spa-
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ces. But if you accidentally leave only one space (or tab) before the
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amount, the amount will be considered part of the account name.
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Dates
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Simple dates
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Within a journal file, transaction dates use Y/M/D (or Y-M-D or Y.M.D)
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Leading zeros are optional. The year may be omitted, in which case it
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will be inferred from the context - the current transaction, the
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default year set with a default year directive, or the current date
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when the command is run. Some examples: 2010/01/31, 1/31, 2010-01-31,
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2010.1.31.
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Secondary dates
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Real-life transactions sometimes involve more than one date - eg the
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date you write a cheque, and the date it clears in your bank. When you
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want to model this, eg for more accurate balances, you can specify
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individual posting dates, which I recommend. Or, you can use the sec-
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ondary dates (aka auxiliary/effective dates) feature, supported for
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compatibility with Ledger.
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A secondary date can be written after the primary date, separated by an
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equals sign. The primary date, on the left, is used by default; the
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secondary date, on the right, is used when the --date2 flag is speci-
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fied (--aux-date or --effective also work).
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The meaning of secondary dates is up to you, but it's best to follow a
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consistent rule. Eg write the bank's clearing date as primary, and
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when needed, the date the transaction was initiated as secondary.
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Here's an example. Note that a secondary date will use the year of the
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primary date if unspecified.
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2010/2/23=2/19 movie ticket
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expenses:cinema $10
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assets:checking
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$ hledger register checking
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2010/02/23 movie ticket assets:checking $-10 $-10
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$ hledger register checking --date2
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2010/02/19 movie ticket assets:checking $-10 $-10
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Secondary dates require some effort; you must use them consistently in
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your journal entries and remember whether to use or not use the --date2
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flag for your reports. They are included in hledger for Ledger compat-
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ibility, but posting dates are a more powerful and less confusing
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alternative.
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Posting dates
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You can give individual postings a different date from their parent
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transaction, by adding a posting comment containing a tag (see below)
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like date:DATE. This is probably the best way to control posting dates
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precisely. Eg in this example the expense should appear in May
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reports, and the deduction from checking should be reported on 6/1 for
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easy bank reconciliation:
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2015/5/30
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expenses:food $10 ; food purchased on saturday 5/30
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assets:checking ; bank cleared it on monday, date:6/1
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$ hledger -f t.j register food
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2015/05/30 expenses:food $10 $10
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$ hledger -f t.j register checking
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2015/06/01 assets:checking $-10 $-10
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DATE should be a simple date; if the year is not specified it will use
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the year of the transaction's date. You can set the secondary date
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similarly, with date2:DATE2. The date: or date2: tags must have a
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valid simple date value if they are present, eg a date: tag with no
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value is not allowed.
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Ledger's earlier, more compact bracketed date syntax is also supported:
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[DATE], [DATE=DATE2] or [=DATE2]. hledger will attempt to parse any
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square-bracketed sequence of the 0123456789/-.= characters in this way.
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With this syntax, DATE infers its year from the transaction and DATE2
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infers its year from DATE.
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Status
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Transactions, or individual postings within a transaction, can have a
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status mark, which is a single character before the transaction
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description or posting account name, separated from it by a space,
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indicating one of three statuses:
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mark status
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------------------
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unmarked
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! pending
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* cleared
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When reporting, you can filter by status with the -U/--unmarked,
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-P/--pending, and -C/--cleared flags; or the status:, status:!, and
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status:* queries; or the U, P, C keys in hledger-ui.
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Note, in Ledger and in older versions of hledger, the "unmarked" state
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is called "uncleared". As of hledger 1.3 we have renamed it to
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unmarked for clarity.
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To replicate Ledger and old hledger's behaviour of also matching pend-
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ing, combine -U and -P.
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Status marks are optional, but can be helpful eg for reconciling with
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real-world accounts. Some editor modes provide highlighting and short-
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cuts for working with status. Eg in Emacs ledger-mode, you can toggle
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transaction status with C-c C-e, or posting status with C-c C-c.
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What "uncleared", "pending", and "cleared" actually mean is up to you.
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Here's one suggestion:
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status meaning
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--------------------------------------------------------------------------
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uncleared recorded but not yet reconciled; needs review
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pending tentatively reconciled (if needed, eg during a big recon-
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ciliation)
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cleared complete, reconciled as far as possible, and considered
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correct
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With this scheme, you would use -PC to see the current balance at your
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bank, -U to see things which will probably hit your bank soon (like
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uncashed checks), and no flags to see the most up-to-date state of your
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finances.
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Description, payee and note
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As mentioned, a transaction's description is the rest of the line fol-
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lowing the date and status mark (or, the rest of line until a comment
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begins). Sometimes called the "narration" in traditional bookkeeping,
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it can be used for whatever you wish, or left blank. The description
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can be queried, unlike comments.
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Including a | (pipe) character in the description will subdivide it
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into a payee/payer name (on the left) and additional notes (on the
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right). This is entirely optional, but it can allow more precise
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querying and pivoting.
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Account names
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Account names typically have several parts separated by a full colon,
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from which hledger derives a hierarchical chart of accounts. They can
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be anything you like, but in finance there are traditionally five
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top-level accounts: assets, liabilities, income, expenses, and equity.
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Account names may contain single spaces, eg: assets:accounts receiv-
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able. Because of this, they must always be followed by two or more
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spaces (or newline).
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Account names can be aliased.
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Amounts
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After the account name, there is usually an amount. Important: between
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account name and amount, there must be two or more spaces.
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Amounts consist of a number and (usually) a currency symbol or commod-
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ity name. Some examples:
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2.00001
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$1
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4000 AAPL
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3 "green apples"
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-$1,000,000.00
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INR 9,99,99,999.00
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EUR -2.000.000,00
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As you can see, the amount format is somewhat flexible:
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o amounts are a number (the "quantity") and optionally a currency sym-
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bol/commodity name (the "commodity").
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o the commodity is a symbol, word, or phrase, on the left or right,
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with or without a separating space. If the commodity contains num-
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bers, spaces or non-word punctuation it must be enclosed in double
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quotes.
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o negative amounts with a commodity on the left can have the minus sign
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before or after it
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o digit groups (thousands, or any other grouping) can be separated by
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commas (in which case period is used for decimal point) or periods
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(in which case comma is used for decimal point)
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You can use any of these variations when recording data, but when
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hledger displays amounts, it will choose a consistent format for each
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commodity. (Except for price amounts, which are always formatted as
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written). The display format is chosen as follows:
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o if there is a commodity directive specifying the format, that is used
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o otherwise the format is inferred from the first posting amount in
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that commodity in the journal, and the precision (number of decimal
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places) will be the maximum from all posting amounts in that commmod-
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ity
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o or if there are no such amounts in the journal, a default format is
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used (like $1000.00).
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Price amounts and amounts in D directives usually don't affect amount
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format inference, but in some situations they can do so indirectly.
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(Eg when D's default commodity is applied to a commodity-less amount,
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or when an amountless posting is balanced using a price's commodity, or
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when -V is used.) If you find this causing problems, set the desired
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format with a commodity directive.
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Virtual Postings
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When you parenthesise the account name in a posting, we call that a
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virtual posting, which means:
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o it is ignored when checking that the transaction is balanced
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o it is excluded from reports when the --real/-R flag is used, or the
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real:1 query.
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You could use this, eg, to set an account's opening balance without
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needing to use the equity:opening balances account:
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1/1 special unbalanced posting to set initial balance
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(assets:checking) $1000
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When the account name is bracketed, we call it a balanced virtual post-
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ing. This is like an ordinary virtual posting except the balanced vir-
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tual postings in a transaction must balance to 0, like the real post-
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ings (but separately from them). Balanced virtual postings are also
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excluded by --real/-R or real:1.
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1/1 buy food with cash, and update some budget-tracking subaccounts elsewhere
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expenses:food $10
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assets:cash $-10
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[assets:checking:available] $10
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[assets:checking:budget:food] $-10
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Virtual postings have some legitimate uses, but those are few. You can
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usually find an equivalent journal entry using real postings, which is
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more correct and provides better error checking.
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Balance Assertions
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hledger supports Ledger-style balance assertions in journal files.
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These look like =EXPECTEDBALANCE following a posting's amount. Eg in
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this example we assert the expected dollar balance in accounts a and b
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after each posting:
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2013/1/1
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a $1 =$1
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b =$-1
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2013/1/2
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a $1 =$2
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b $-1 =$-2
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After reading a journal file, hledger will check all balance assertions
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and report an error if any of them fail. Balance assertions can pro-
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tect you from, eg, inadvertently disrupting reconciled balances while
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cleaning up old entries. You can disable them temporarily with the
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--ignore-assertions flag, which can be useful for troubleshooting or
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for reading Ledger files.
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Assertions and ordering
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hledger sorts an account's postings and assertions first by date and
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then (for postings on the same day) by parse order. Note this is dif-
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ferent from Ledger, which sorts assertions only by parse order. (Also,
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Ledger assertions do not see the accumulated effect of repeated post-
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ings to the same account within a transaction.)
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So, hledger balance assertions keep working if you reorder differ-
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ently-dated transactions within the journal. But if you reorder
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same-dated transactions or postings, assertions might break and require
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updating. This order dependence does bring an advantage: precise con-
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trol over the order of postings and assertions within a day, so you can
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assert intra-day balances.
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Assertions and included files
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With included files, things are a little more complicated. Including
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preserves the ordering of postings and assertions. If you have multi-
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ple postings to an account on the same day, split across different
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files, and you also want to assert the account's balance on the same
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day, you'll have to put the assertion in the right file.
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Assertions and multiple -f options
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Balance assertions don't work well across files specified with multiple
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-f options. Use include or concatenate the files instead.
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Assertions and commodities
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The asserted balance must be a simple single-commodity amount, and in
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fact the assertion checks only this commodity's balance within the
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(possibly multi-commodity) account balance. We could call this a par-
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tial balance assertion. This is compatible with Ledger, and makes it
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possible to make assertions about accounts containing multiple commodi-
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ties.
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To assert each commodity's balance in such a multi-commodity account,
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you can add multiple postings (with amount 0 if necessary). But note
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that no matter how many assertions you add, you can't be sure the
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account does not contain some unexpected commodity. (We'll add support
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for this kind of total balance assertion if there's demand.)
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Assertions and subaccounts
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Balance assertions do not count the balance from subaccounts; they
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check the posted account's exclusive balance. For example:
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1/1
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checking:fund 1 = 1 ; post to this subaccount, its balance is now 1
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checking 1 = 1 ; post to the parent account, its exclusive balance is now 1
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equity
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The balance report's flat mode shows these exclusive balances more
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clearly:
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$ hledger bal checking --flat
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1 checking
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1 checking:fund
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--------------------
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2
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Assertions and virtual postings
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Balance assertions are checked against all postings, both real and vir-
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tual. They are not affected by the --real/-R flag or real: query.
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Balance Assignments
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Ledger-style balance assignments are also supported. These are like
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balance assertions, but with no posting amount on the left side of the
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equals sign; instead it is calculated automatically so as to satisfy
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the assertion. This can be a convenience during data entry, eg when
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setting opening balances:
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; starting a new journal, set asset account balances
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2016/1/1 opening balances
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assets:checking = $409.32
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assets:savings = $735.24
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assets:cash = $42
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equity:opening balances
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or when adjusting a balance to reality:
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; no cash left; update balance, record any untracked spending as a generic expense
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2016/1/15
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assets:cash = $0
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expenses:misc
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The calculated amount depends on the account's balance in the commodity
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at that point (which depends on the previously-dated postings of the
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commodity to that account since the last balance assertion or assign-
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ment). Note that using balance assignments makes your journal a little
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less explicit; to know the exact amount posted, you have to run hledger
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or do the calculations yourself, instead of just reading it.
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Prices
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Transaction prices
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Within a transaction, you can note an amount's price in another commod-
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ity. This can be used to document the cost (in a purchase) or selling
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price (in a sale). For example, transaction prices are useful to
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record purchases of a foreign currency.
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Transaction prices are fixed, and do not change over time. (Ledger
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users: Ledger uses a different syntax for fixed prices, {=UNITPRICE},
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which hledger currently ignores).
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There are several ways to record a transaction price:
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1. Write the price per unit, as @ UNITPRICE after the amount:
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2009/1/1
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assets:euros 100 @ $1.35 ; one hundred euros purchased at $1.35 each
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assets:dollars ; balancing amount is -$135.00
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2. Write the total price, as @@ TOTALPRICE after the amount:
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2009/1/1
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assets:euros 100 @@ $135 ; one hundred euros purchased at $135 for the lot
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assets:dollars
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3. Specify amounts for all postings, using exactly two commodities, and
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let hledger infer the price that balances the transaction:
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2009/1/1
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assets:euros 100 ; one hundred euros purchased
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assets:dollars $-135 ; for $135
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Amounts with transaction prices can be displayed in the transaction
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price's commodity by using the -B/--cost flag (except for #551) ("B" is
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from "cost Basis"). Eg for the above, here is how -B affects the bal-
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ance report:
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$ hledger bal -N --flat
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$-135 assets:dollars
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100 assets:euros
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$ hledger bal -N --flat -B
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$-135 assets:dollars
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$135 assets:euros # <- the euros' cost
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Note -B is sensitive to the order of postings when a transaction price
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is inferred: the inferred price will be in the commodity of the last
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amount. So if example 3's postings are reversed, while the transaction
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is equivalent, -B shows something different:
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2009/1/1
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assets:dollars $-135 ; 135 dollars sold
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assets:euros 100 ; for 100 euros
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$ hledger bal -N --flat -B
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-100 assets:dollars # <- the dollars' selling price
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100 assets:euros
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Market prices
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Market prices are not tied to a particular transaction; they represent
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historical exchange rates between two commodities. (Ledger calls them
|
|
historical prices.) For example, the prices published by a stock
|
|
exchange or the foreign exchange market. hledger can use these prices
|
|
to show the market value of things at a given date, see market value.
|
|
|
|
To record market prices, use P directives in the main journal or in an
|
|
included file. Their format is:
|
|
|
|
P DATE COMMODITYBEINGPRICED UNITPRICE
|
|
|
|
DATE is a simple date as usual. COMMODITYBEINGPRICED is the symbol of
|
|
the commodity being priced. UNITPRICE is an ordinary amount (symbol
|
|
and quantity) in a second commodity, specifying the unit price or con-
|
|
version rate for the first commodity in terms of the second, on the
|
|
given date.
|
|
|
|
For example, the following directives say that one euro was worth 1.35
|
|
US dollars during 2009, and $1.40 from 2010 onward:
|
|
|
|
P 2009/1/1 $1.35
|
|
P 2010/1/1 $1.40
|
|
|
|
Comments
|
|
Lines in the journal beginning with a semicolon (;) or hash (#) or
|
|
asterisk (*) are comments, and will be ignored. (Asterisk comments
|
|
make it easy to treat your journal like an org-mode outline in emacs.)
|
|
|
|
Also, anything between comment and end comment directives is a
|
|
(multi-line) comment. If there is no end comment, the comment extends
|
|
to the end of the file.
|
|
|
|
You can attach comments to a transaction by writing them after the
|
|
description and/or indented on the following lines (before the post-
|
|
ings). Similarly, you can attach comments to an individual posting by
|
|
writing them after the amount and/or indented on the following lines.
|
|
|
|
Some examples:
|
|
|
|
# a journal comment
|
|
|
|
; also a journal comment
|
|
|
|
comment
|
|
This is a multiline comment,
|
|
which continues until a line
|
|
where the "end comment" string
|
|
appears on its own.
|
|
end comment
|
|
|
|
2012/5/14 something ; a transaction comment
|
|
; the transaction comment, continued
|
|
posting1 1 ; a comment for posting 1
|
|
posting2
|
|
; a comment for posting 2
|
|
; another comment line for posting 2
|
|
; a journal comment (because not indented)
|
|
|
|
Tags
|
|
Tags are a way to add extra labels or labelled data to postings and
|
|
transactions, which you can then search or pivot on.
|
|
|
|
A simple tag is a word (which may contain hyphens) followed by a full
|
|
colon, written inside a transaction or posting comment line:
|
|
|
|
2017/1/16 bought groceries ; sometag:
|
|
|
|
Tags can have a value, which is the text after the colon, up to the
|
|
next comma or end of line, with leading/trailing whitespace removed:
|
|
|
|
expenses:food $10 ; a-posting-tag: the tag value
|
|
|
|
Note this means hledger's tag values can not contain commas or new-
|
|
lines. Ending at commas means you can write multiple short tags on one
|
|
line, comma separated:
|
|
|
|
assets:checking ; a comment containing tag1:, tag2: some value ...
|
|
|
|
Here,
|
|
|
|
o "a comment containing" is just comment text, not a tag
|
|
|
|
o "tag1" is a tag with no value
|
|
|
|
o "tag2" is another tag, whose value is "some value ..."
|
|
|
|
Tags in a transaction comment affect the transaction and all of its
|
|
postings, while tags in a posting comment affect only that posting.
|
|
For example, the following transaction has three tags (A, TAG2,
|
|
third-tag) and the posting has four (those plus posting-tag):
|
|
|
|
1/1 a transaction ; A:, TAG2:
|
|
; third-tag: a third transaction tag, <- with a value
|
|
(a) $1 ; posting-tag:
|
|
|
|
Tags are like Ledger's metadata feature, except hledger's tag values
|
|
are simple strings.
|
|
|
|
Directives
|
|
Account aliases
|
|
You can define aliases which rewrite your account names (after reading
|
|
the journal, before generating reports). hledger's account aliases can
|
|
be useful for:
|
|
|
|
o expanding shorthand account names to their full form, allowing easier
|
|
data entry and a less verbose journal
|
|
|
|
o adapting old journals to your current chart of accounts
|
|
|
|
o experimenting with new account organisations, like a new hierarchy or
|
|
combining two accounts into one
|
|
|
|
o customising reports
|
|
|
|
See also Cookbook: rewrite account names.
|
|
|
|
Basic aliases
|
|
To set an account alias, use the alias directive in your journal file.
|
|
This affects all subsequent journal entries in the current file or its
|
|
included files. The spaces around the = are optional:
|
|
|
|
alias OLD = NEW
|
|
|
|
Or, you can use the --alias 'OLD=NEW' option on the command line. This
|
|
affects all entries. It's useful for trying out aliases interactively.
|
|
|
|
OLD and NEW are full account names. hledger will replace any occur-
|
|
rence of the old account name with the new one. Subaccounts are also
|
|
affected. Eg:
|
|
|
|
alias checking = assets:bank:wells fargo:checking
|
|
# rewrites "checking" to "assets:bank:wells fargo:checking", or "checking:a" to "assets:bank:wells fargo:checking:a"
|
|
|
|
Regex aliases
|
|
There is also a more powerful variant that uses a regular expression,
|
|
indicated by the forward slashes:
|
|
|
|
alias /REGEX/ = REPLACEMENT
|
|
|
|
or --alias '/REGEX/=REPLACEMENT'.
|
|
|
|
REGEX is a case-insensitive regular expression. Anywhere it matches
|
|
inside an account name, the matched part will be replaced by REPLACE-
|
|
MENT. If REGEX contains parenthesised match groups, these can be ref-
|
|
erenced by the usual numeric backreferences in REPLACEMENT. Note, cur-
|
|
rently regular expression aliases may cause noticeable slow-downs.
|
|
(And if you use Ledger on your hledger file, they will be ignored.) Eg:
|
|
|
|
alias /^(.+):bank:([^:]+)(.*)/ = \1:\2 \3
|
|
# rewrites "assets:bank:wells fargo:checking" to "assets:wells fargo checking"
|
|
|
|
Multiple aliases
|
|
You can define as many aliases as you like using directives or com-
|
|
mand-line options. Aliases are recursive - each alias sees the result
|
|
of applying previous ones. (This is different from Ledger, where
|
|
aliases are non-recursive by default). Aliases are applied in the fol-
|
|
lowing order:
|
|
|
|
1. alias directives, most recently seen first (recent directives take
|
|
precedence over earlier ones; directives not yet seen are ignored)
|
|
|
|
2. alias options, in the order they appear on the command line
|
|
|
|
end aliases
|
|
You can clear (forget) all currently defined aliases with the
|
|
end aliases directive:
|
|
|
|
end aliases
|
|
|
|
account directive
|
|
The account directive predefines account names, as in Ledger and Bean-
|
|
count. This may be useful for your own documentation; hledger doesn't
|
|
make use of it yet.
|
|
|
|
; account ACCT
|
|
; OPTIONAL COMMENTS/TAGS...
|
|
|
|
account assets:bank:checking
|
|
a comment
|
|
acct-no:12345
|
|
|
|
account expenses:food
|
|
|
|
; etc.
|
|
|
|
apply account directive
|
|
You can specify a parent account which will be prepended to all
|
|
accounts within a section of the journal. Use the apply account and
|
|
end apply account directives like so:
|
|
|
|
apply account home
|
|
|
|
2010/1/1
|
|
food $10
|
|
cash
|
|
|
|
end apply account
|
|
|
|
which is equivalent to:
|
|
|
|
2010/01/01
|
|
home:food $10
|
|
home:cash $-10
|
|
|
|
If end apply account is omitted, the effect lasts to the end of the
|
|
file. Included files are also affected, eg:
|
|
|
|
apply account business
|
|
include biz.journal
|
|
end apply account
|
|
apply account personal
|
|
include personal.journal
|
|
|
|
Prior to hledger 1.0, legacy account and end spellings were also sup-
|
|
ported.
|
|
|
|
Multi-line comments
|
|
A line containing just comment starts a multi-line comment, and a line
|
|
containing just end comment ends it. See comments.
|
|
|
|
commodity directive
|
|
The commodity directive predefines commodities (currently this is just
|
|
informational), and also it may define the display format for amounts
|
|
in this commodity (overriding the automatically inferred format).
|
|
|
|
It may be written on a single line, like this:
|
|
|
|
; commodity EXAMPLEAMOUNT
|
|
|
|
; 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
|
|
|
|
or on multiple lines, using the "format" subdirective. In this case
|
|
the commodity symbol appears twice and should be the same in both
|
|
places:
|
|
|
|
; commodity SYMBOL
|
|
; format EXAMPLEAMOUNT
|
|
|
|
; display indian rupees with currency name on the left,
|
|
; thousands, lakhs and crores comma-separated,
|
|
; period as decimal point, and two decimal places.
|
|
commodity INR
|
|
format INR 9,99,99,999.00
|
|
|
|
Default commodity
|
|
The D directive sets a default commodity (and display format), to be
|
|
used for amounts without a commodity symbol (ie, plain numbers). (Note
|
|
this differs from Ledger's default commodity directive.) The commodity
|
|
and display format will be applied to all subsequent commodity-less
|
|
amounts, or until the next D directive.
|
|
|
|
# commodity-less amounts should be treated as dollars
|
|
# (and displayed with symbol on the left, thousands separators and two decimal places)
|
|
D $1,000.00
|
|
|
|
1/1
|
|
a 5 # <- commodity-less amount, becomes $1
|
|
b
|
|
|
|
Default year
|
|
You can set a default year to be used for subsequent dates which don't
|
|
specify a year. This is a line beginning with Y followed by the year.
|
|
Eg:
|
|
|
|
Y2009 ; set default year to 2009
|
|
|
|
12/15 ; equivalent to 2009/12/15
|
|
expenses 1
|
|
assets
|
|
|
|
Y2010 ; change default year to 2010
|
|
|
|
2009/1/30 ; specifies the year, not affected
|
|
expenses 1
|
|
assets
|
|
|
|
1/31 ; equivalent to 2010/1/31
|
|
expenses 1
|
|
assets
|
|
|
|
Including other files
|
|
You can pull in the content of additional journal files by writing an
|
|
include directive, like this:
|
|
|
|
include path/to/file.journal
|
|
|
|
If the path does not begin with a slash, it is relative to the current
|
|
file. Glob patterns (*) are not currently supported.
|
|
|
|
The include directive can only be used in journal files. It can
|
|
include journal, timeclock or timedot files, but not CSV files.
|
|
|
|
EDITOR SUPPORT
|
|
Add-on modes exist for various text editors, to make working with jour-
|
|
nal files easier. They add colour, navigation aids and helpful com-
|
|
mands. For hledger users who edit the journal file directly (the
|
|
majority), using one of these modes is quite recommended.
|
|
|
|
These were written with Ledger in mind, but also work with hledger
|
|
files:
|
|
|
|
|
|
Emacs http://www.ledger-cli.org/3.0/doc/ledger-mode.html
|
|
Vim https://github.com/ledger/ledger/wiki/Get-
|
|
ting-started
|
|
Sublime Text https://github.com/ledger/ledger/wiki/Using-Sub-
|
|
lime-Text
|
|
Textmate https://github.com/ledger/ledger/wiki/Using-Text-
|
|
Mate-2
|
|
Text Wrangler https://github.com/ledger/ledger/wiki/Edit-
|
|
ing-Ledger-files-with-TextWrangler
|
|
Visual Studio https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?item-
|
|
Code Name=mark-hansen.hledger-vscode
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
REPORTING BUGS
|
|
Report bugs at http://bugs.hledger.org (or on the #hledger IRC channel
|
|
or hledger mail list)
|
|
|
|
|
|
AUTHORS
|
|
Simon Michael <simon@joyful.com> and contributors
|
|
|
|
|
|
COPYRIGHT
|
|
Copyright (C) 2007-2016 Simon Michael.
|
|
Released under GNU GPL v3 or later.
|
|
|
|
|
|
SEE ALSO
|
|
hledger(1), hledger-ui(1), hledger-web(1), hledger-api(1),
|
|
hledger_csv(5), hledger_journal(5), hledger_timeclock(5), hledger_time-
|
|
dot(5), ledger(1)
|
|
|
|
http://hledger.org
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
hledger 1.3.99 July 2017 hledger_journal(5)
|