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m4_dnl Quick hledger docs editing intro: m4_dnl .m4.md are hledger docs source, processed with m4 to generate markdown. m4_dnl Lines beginning with m4_dnl are comments. m4_dnl Words enclosed in underscores are macros, defined in doc/common.m4. m4_dnl Macro arguments are enclosed in (). Text literals are enclosed in {{}}. m4_dnl Macros may depend on command line flags, configured in Shake.hs. m4_dnl In Emacs: m4_dnl markdown-mode S-TAB cycles visibility, TAB toggles one section. m4_dnl C-x n s on a heading narrows to that section (C-x n w to widen again).
m4_dnl Show these first headings only in man pages: man({{ # NAME }})
hledger - a command-line accounting tool
man({{ # SYNOPSIS }})
hledger [-f FILE] COMMAND [OPTIONS] [ARGS]
hledger [-f FILE] ADDONCMD -- [OPTIONS] [ARGS]
hledger
man({{ # DESCRIPTION }})
m4_dnl Include the standard description: hledgerdescription
This is hledger’s command-line interface (there are also terminal and web interfaces). Its basic function is to read a plain text file describing financial transactions (in accounting terms, a general journal) and print useful reports on standard output, or export them as CSV. hledger can also read some other file formats such as CSV files, translating them to journal format. Additionally, hledger lists other hledger-* executables found in the user’s $PATH and can invoke them as subcommands.
hledger reads files If using $LEDGER_FILE, note
this must be a real environment variable, not a shell variable. You can
specify standard input with -f-.
Transactions are dated movements of money between two (or more) named accounts, and are recorded with journal entries like this:
m4_dnl Format as a journal snippet: journal({{ 2015/10/16 bought food expenses:food $10 assets:cash }})
For more about this format, see hledger_journal(5).
Most users use a text editor to edit the journal, usually with an editor mode such as ledger-mode for added convenience. hledger’s interactive add command is another way to record new transactions. hledger never changes existing transactions.
To get started, you can either save some entries like the above in
~/.hledger.journal, or run hledger add and
follow the prompts. Then try some commands like
hledger print or hledger balance. Run
hledger with no arguments for a list of commands.
COMMON TASKS
Here are some quick examples of how to do some basic tasks with hledger. For more details, see the reference section below, the hledger_journal(5) manual, or the more extensive docs at https://hledger.org.
Getting help
$ hledger # show available commands
$ hledger --help # show common options
$ hledger CMD --help # show common and command options, and command help
$ hledger help # show available manuals/topics
$ hledger help hledger # show hledger manual as info/man/text (auto-chosen)
$ hledger help journal --man # show the journal manual as a man page
$ hledger help --help # show more detailed help for the help command
Find more docs, chat, mail list, reddit, issue tracker: https://hledger.org#help-feedback
Constructing command lines
hledger has an extensive and powerful command line interface. We strive to keep it simple and ergonomic, but you may run into one of the confusing real world details described in OPTIONS, below. If that happens, here are some tips that may help:
- command-specific options must go after the command (it’s fine to put
all options there) (
hledger CMD OPTS ARGS) - running add-on executables directly simplifies command line parsing
(
hledger-ui OPTS ARGS) - enclose “problematic” args in single quotes
- if needed, also add a backslash to hide regular expression metacharacters from the shell
- to see how a misbehaving command is being parsed, add
--debug=2.
Starting a journal file
hledger looks for your accounting data in a journal file,
$HOME/.hledger.journal by default:
$ hledger stats
The hledger journal file "/Users/simon/.hledger.journal" was not found.
Please create it first, eg with "hledger add" or a text editor.
Or, specify an existing journal file with -f or LEDGER_FILE.
You can override this by setting the LEDGER_FILE
environment variable. It’s a good practice to keep this important file
under version control, and to start a new file each year. So you could
do something like this:
$ mkdir ~/finance
$ cd ~/finance
$ git init
Initialized empty Git repository in /Users/simon/finance/.git/
$ touch 2020.journal
$ echo "export LEDGER_FILE=$HOME/finance/2020.journal" >> ~/.bashrc
$ source ~/.bashrc
$ hledger stats
Main file : /Users/simon/finance/2020.journal
Included files :
Transactions span : to (0 days)
Last transaction : none
Transactions : 0 (0.0 per day)
Transactions last 30 days: 0 (0.0 per day)
Transactions last 7 days : 0 (0.0 per day)
Payees/descriptions : 0
Accounts : 0 (depth 0)
Commodities : 0 ()
Market prices : 0 ()
Setting opening balances
Pick a starting date for which you can look up the balances of some real-world assets (bank accounts, wallet..) and liabilities (credit cards..).
To avoid a lot of data entry, you may want to start with just one or two accounts, like your checking account or cash wallet; and pick a recent starting date, like today or the start of the week. You can always come back later and add more accounts and older transactions, eg going back to january 1st.
Add an opening balances transaction to the journal, declaring the balances on this date. Here are two ways to do it:
The first way: open the journal in any text editor and save an entry like this:
2020-01-01 * opening balances assets:bank:checking $1000 = $1000 assets:bank:savings $2000 = $2000 assets:cash $100 = $100 liabilities:creditcard $-50 = $-50 equity:opening/closing balancesThese are start-of-day balances, ie whatever was in the account at the end of the previous day.
The * after the date is an optional status flag. Here it means “cleared & confirmed”.
The currency symbols are optional, but usually a good idea as you’ll be dealing with multiple currencies sooner or later.
The = amounts are optional balance assertions, providing extra error checking.
The second way: run
hledger addand follow the prompts to record a similar transaction:$ hledger add Adding transactions to journal file /Users/simon/finance/2020.journal Any command line arguments will be used as defaults. Use tab key to complete, readline keys to edit, enter to accept defaults. An optional (CODE) may follow transaction dates. An optional ; COMMENT may follow descriptions or amounts. If you make a mistake, enter < at any prompt to go one step backward. To end a transaction, enter . when prompted. To quit, enter . at a date prompt or press control-d or control-c. Date [2020-02-07]: 2020-01-01 Description: * opening balances Account 1: assets:bank:checking Amount 1: $1000 Account 2: assets:bank:savings Amount 2 [$-1000]: $2000 Account 3: assets:cash Amount 3 [$-3000]: $100 Account 4: liabilities:creditcard Amount 4 [$-3100]: $-50 Account 5: equity:opening/closing balances Amount 5 [$-3050]: Account 6 (or . or enter to finish this transaction): . 2020-01-01 * opening balances assets:bank:checking $1000 assets:bank:savings $2000 assets:cash $100 liabilities:creditcard $-50 equity:opening/closing balances $-3050 Save this transaction to the journal ? [y]: Saved. Starting the next transaction (. or ctrl-D/ctrl-C to quit) Date [2020-01-01]: .
If you’re using version control, this could be a good time to commit the journal. Eg:
$ git commit -m 'initial balances' 2020.journal
Recording transactions
As you spend or receive money, you can record these transactions using one of the methods above (text editor, hledger add) or by using the hledger-iadd or hledger-web add-ons, or by using the import command to convert CSV data downloaded from your bank.
Here are some simple transactions, see the hledger_journal(5) manual and hledger.org for more ideas:
2020/1/10 * gift received
assets:cash $20
income:gifts
2020.1.12 * farmers market
expenses:food $13
assets:cash
2020-01-15 paycheck
income:salary
assets:bank:checking $1000
Reconciling
Periodically you should reconcile - compare your hledger-reported balances against external sources of truth, like bank statements or your bank’s website - to be sure that your ledger accurately represents the real-world balances (and, that the real-world institutions have not made a mistake!). This gets easy and fast with (1) practice and (2) frequency. If you do it daily, it can take 2-10 minutes. If you let it pile up, expect it to take longer as you hunt down errors and discrepancies.
A typical workflow:
Reconcile cash. Count what’s in your wallet. Compare with what hledger reports (
hledger bal cash). If they are different, try to remember the missing transaction, or look for the error in the already-recorded transactions. A register report can be helpful (hledger reg cash). If you can’t find the error, add an adjustment transaction. Eg if you have $105 after the above, and can’t explain the missing $2, it could be:2020-01-16 * adjust cash assets:cash $-2 = $105 expenses:miscReconcile checking. Log in to your bank’s website. Compare today’s (cleared) balance with hledger’s cleared balance (
hledger bal checking -C). If they are different, track down the error or record the missing transaction(s) or add an adjustment transaction, similar to the above. Unlike the cash case, you can usually compare the transaction history and running balance from your bank with the one reported byhledger reg checking -C. This will be easier if you generally record transaction dates quite similar to your bank’s clearing dates.Repeat for other asset/liability accounts.
Tip: instead of the register command, use hledger-ui to see a
live-updating register while you edit the journal:
hledger-ui --watch --register checking -C
After reconciling, it could be a good time to mark the reconciled
transactions’ status as “cleared and confirmed”, if you want to track
that, by adding the * marker. Eg in the paycheck
transaction above, insert * between 2020-01-15
and paycheck
If you’re using version control, this can be another good time to commit:
$ git commit -m 'txns' 2020.journal
Reporting
Here are some basic reports.
Show all transactions:
$ hledger print
2020-01-01 * opening balances
assets:bank:checking $1000
assets:bank:savings $2000
assets:cash $100
liabilities:creditcard $-50
equity:opening/closing balances $-3050
2020-01-10 * gift received
assets:cash $20
income:gifts
2020-01-12 * farmers market
expenses:food $13
assets:cash
2020-01-15 * paycheck
income:salary
assets:bank:checking $1000
2020-01-16 * adjust cash
assets:cash $-2 = $105
expenses:misc
Show account names, and their hierarchy:
$ hledger accounts --tree
assets
bank
checking
savings
cash
equity
opening/closing balances
expenses
food
misc
income
gifts
salary
liabilities
creditcard
Show all account totals:
$ hledger balance
$4105 assets
$4000 bank
$2000 checking
$2000 savings
$105 cash
$-3050 equity:opening/closing balances
$15 expenses
$13 food
$2 misc
$-1020 income
$-20 gifts
$-1000 salary
$-50 liabilities:creditcard
--------------------
0
Show only asset and liability balances, as a flat list, limited to depth 2:
$ hledger bal assets liabilities --flat -2
$4000 assets:bank
$105 assets:cash
$-50 liabilities:creditcard
--------------------
$4055
Show the same thing without negative numbers, formatted as a simple balance sheet:
$ hledger bs --flat -2
Balance Sheet 2020-01-16
|| 2020-01-16
========================++============
Assets ||
------------------------++------------
assets:bank || $4000
assets:cash || $105
------------------------++------------
|| $4105
========================++============
Liabilities ||
------------------------++------------
liabilities:creditcard || $50
------------------------++------------
|| $50
========================++============
Net: || $4055
The final total is your “net worth” on the end date. (Or use
bse for a full balance sheet with equity.)
Show income and expense totals, formatted as an income statement:
hledger is
Income Statement 2020-01-01-2020-01-16
|| 2020-01-01-2020-01-16
===============++=======================
Revenues ||
---------------++-----------------------
income:gifts || $20
income:salary || $1000
---------------++-----------------------
|| $1020
===============++=======================
Expenses ||
---------------++-----------------------
expenses:food || $13
expenses:misc || $2
---------------++-----------------------
|| $15
===============++=======================
Net: || $1005
The final total is your net income during this period.
Show transactions affecting your wallet, with running total:
$ hledger register cash
2020-01-01 opening balances assets:cash $100 $100
2020-01-10 gift received assets:cash $20 $120
2020-01-12 farmers market assets:cash $-13 $107
2020-01-16 adjust cash assets:cash $-2 $105
Show weekly posting counts as a bar chart:
$ hledger activity -W
2019-12-30 *****
2020-01-06 ****
2020-01-13 ****
Migrating to a new file
At the end of the year, you may want to continue your journal in a new file, so that old transactions don’t slow down or clutter your reports, and to help ensure the integrity of your accounting history. See the close command.
If using version control, don’t forget to git add the
new file.
OPTIONS
General options
To see general usage help, including general options which are
supported by most hledger commands, run hledger -h.
General help options:
helpoptions
General input options:
inputoptions
General reporting options:
reportingoptions
Command options
To see options for a particular command, including command-specific
options, run: hledger COMMAND -h.
Command-specific options must be written after the command name, eg:
hledger print -x.
Additionally, if the command is an addon, you
may need to put its options after a double-hyphen, eg:
hledger ui -- --watch. Or, you can run the addon executable
directly: hledger-ui --watch.
Command arguments
Most hledger commands accept arguments after the command name, which are often a query, filtering the data in some way.
You can save a set of command line options/arguments in a file, and
then reuse them by writing @FILENAME as a command line
argument. Eg: hledger bal @foo.args. (To prevent this, eg
if you have an argument that begins with a literal @,
precede it with --, eg:
hledger bal -- @ARG).
Inside the argument file, each line should contain just one option or argument. Avoid the use of spaces, except inside quotes (or you’ll see a confusing error). Between a flag and its argument, use = (or nothing). Bad:
assets depth:2
-X USD
Good:
assets
depth:2
-X=USD
For special characters (see below), use one less level of quoting than you would at the command prompt. Bad:
-X"$"
Good:
-X$
See also: Save frequently used options.
Queries
One of hledger’s strengths is being able to quickly report on precise subsets of your data. Most commands accept an optional query expression, written as arguments after the command name, to filter the data by date, account name or other criteria. The syntax is similar to a web search: one or more space-separated search terms, quotes to enclose whitespace, prefixes to match specific fields, a not: prefix to negate the match.
We do not yet support arbitrary boolean combinations of search terms; instead most commands show transactions/postings/accounts which match (or negatively match):
- any of the description terms AND
- any of the account terms AND
- any of the status terms AND
- all the other terms.
The print command instead shows transactions which:
- match any of the description terms AND
- have any postings matching any of the positive account terms AND
- have no postings matching any of the negative account terms AND
- match all the other terms.
The following kinds of search terms can be used. Remember these can
also be prefixed with not:, eg to exclude
a particular subaccount.
REGEX,acct:REGEX-
match account names by this regular expression. (With no prefix,
acct:is assumed.) -
same as above
amt:N, amt:<N, amt:<=N, amt:>N, amt:>=N- match postings with a single-commodity amount that is equal to, less than, or greater than N. (Multi-commodity amounts are not tested, and will always match.) The comparison has two modes: if N is preceded by a + or - sign (or is 0), the two signed numbers are compared. Otherwise, the absolute magnitudes are compared, ignoring sign.
code:REGEX- match by transaction code (eg check number)
cur:REGEX-
match postings or transactions including any amounts whose
currency/commodity symbol is fully matched by REGEX. (For a partial
match, use
.*REGEX.*). Note, to match characters which are regex-significant, like the dollar sign ($), you need to prepend\. And when using the command line you need to add one more level of quoting to hide it from the shell, so eg do:hledger print cur:'\$'orhledger print cur:\\$. desc:REGEX- match transaction descriptions.
date:PERIODEXPR-
match dates within the specified period. PERIODEXPR is a period expression (with no
report interval). Examples:
date:2016,date:thismonth,date:2000/2/1-2/15,date:lastweek-. If the--date2command line flag is present, this matches secondary dates instead. date2:PERIODEXPR- match secondary dates within the specified period.
depth:N- match (or display, depending on command) accounts at or above this depth
note:REGEX-
match transaction notes (part
of description right of
|, or whole description when there’s no|) payee:REGEX-
match transaction payee/payer
names (part of description left of
|, or whole description when there’s no|) real:, real:0- match real or virtual postings respectively
status:, status:!, status:*- match unmarked, pending, or cleared transactions respectively
tag:REGEX[=REGEX]- match by tag name, and optionally also by tag value. Note a tag: query is considered to match a transaction if it matches any of the postings. Also remember that postings inherit the tags of their parent transaction.
The following special search term is used automatically in hledger-web, only:
inacct:ACCTNAME-
tells hledger-web to show the transaction register for this account. Can
be filtered further with
acctetc.
Some of these can also be expressed as command-line options (eg
depth:2 is equivalent to --depth 2). Generally
you can mix options and query arguments, and the resulting query will be
their intersection (perhaps excluding the -p/--period
option).
Special characters in arguments and queries
In shell command lines, option and argument values which contain
“problematic” characters, ie spaces, and also characters significant to
your shell such as <, >, (,
), | and $, should be escaped by
enclosing them in quotes or by writing backslashes before the
characters. Eg:
hledger register -p 'last year' "accounts receivable (receivable|payable)" amt:\>100.
More escaping
Characters significant both to the shell and in regular expressions may need one extra level of escaping. These include parentheses, the pipe symbol and the dollar sign. Eg, to match the dollar symbol, bash users should do:
hledger balance cur:'\$'
or:
hledger balance cur:\\$
Even more escaping
When hledger runs an addon executable (eg you type
hledger ui, hledger runs hledger-ui), it
de-escapes command-line options and arguments once, so you might need to
triple-escape. Eg in bash, running the ui command and matching
the dollar sign, it’s:
hledger ui cur:'\\$'
or:
hledger ui cur:\\\\$
If you asked why four slashes above, this may help:
| unescaped: | $ |
| escaped: | \$ |
| double-escaped: | \\$ |
| triple-escaped: | \\\\$ |
(The number of backslashes in fish shell is left as an exercise for the reader.)
You can always avoid the extra escaping for addons by running the addon directly:
hledger-ui cur:\\$
Less escaping
Inside an argument file, or in the search field of hledger-ui or hledger-web, or at a GHCI prompt, you need one less level of escaping than at the command line. And backslashes may work better than quotes. Eg:
ghci> :main balance cur:\$
Unicode characters
hledger is expected to handle non-ascii characters correctly:
they should be parsed correctly in input files and on the command line, by all hledger tools (add, iadd, hledger-web’s search/add/edit forms, etc.)
they should be displayed correctly by all hledger tools, and on-screen alignment should be preserved.
This requires a well-configured environment. Here are some tips:
A system locale must be configured, and it must be one that can decode the characters being used. In bash, you can set a locale like this:
export LANG=en_US.UTF-8. There are some more details in Troubleshooting. This step is essential - without it, hledger will quit on encountering a non-ascii character (as with all GHC-compiled programs).your terminal software (eg Terminal.app, iTerm, CMD.exe, xterm..) must support unicode
the terminal must be using a font which includes the required unicode glyphs
the terminal should be configured to display wide characters as double width (for report alignment)
on Windows, for best results you should run hledger in the same kind of environment in which it was built. Eg hledger built in the standard CMD.EXE environment (like the binaries on our download page) might show display problems when run in a cygwin or msys terminal, and vice versa. (See eg #961).
Input files
hledger reads transactions from a data file (and the add command
writes to it). By default this file is
$HOME/.hledger.journal (or on Windows, something like
C:/Users/USER/.hledger.journal). You can override this with
the $LEDGER_FILE environment variable:
$ setenv LEDGER_FILE ~/finance/2016.journal
$ hledger stats
or with the -f/--file option:
$ hledger -f /some/file stats
The file name - (hyphen) means standard input:
$ cat some.journal | hledger -f-
Usually the data file is in hledger’s journal format, but it can be in any of the supported file formats, which currently are:
| Reader: | Reads: | Used for file extensions: |
|---|---|---|
journal |
hledger journal files and some Ledger journals, for transactions | .journal .j .hledger
.ledger |
timeclock |
timeclock files, for precise time logging | .timeclock |
timedot |
timedot files, for approximate time logging | .timedot |
csv |
comma/semicolon/tab/other-separated values, for data import | .csv .ssv .tsv |
hledger detects the format automatically based on the file extensions
shown above. If it can’t recognise the file extension, it assumes
journal format. So for non-journal files, it’s important to
use a recognised file extension, so as to either read successfully or to
show relevant error messages.
When you can’t ensure the right file extension, not to worry: you can force a specific reader/format by prefixing the file path with the format and a colon. Eg to read a .dat file as csv:
$ hledger -f csv:/some/csv-file.dat stats
$ echo 'i 2009/13/1 08:00:00' | hledger print -ftimeclock:-
You can specify multiple -f options, to read multiple
files as one big journal. There are some limitations with this:
- directives in one file will not affect the other files
- balance assertions will not see any account balances from previous files
If you need either of those things, you can
- use a single parent file which includes the others
- or concatenate the files into one before reading, eg:
cat a.journal b.journal | hledger -f- CMD.
Strict mode
hledger checks input files for valid data. By default, the most important errors are detected, while still accepting easy journal files without a lot of declarations:
- Are the input files parseable, with valid syntax ?
- Are all transactions balanced ?
- Do all balance assertions pass ?
With the -s/--strict flag, additional
checks are performed:
- Are all accounts posted to, declared with an
accountdirective ? (Account error checking) - Are all commodities declared with a
commoditydirective ? (Commodity error checking)
See also: https://hledger.org/checking-for-errors.html
experimental.
Output destination
hledger commands send their output to the terminal by default. You can of course redirect this, eg into a file, using standard shell syntax:
$ hledger print > foo.txt
Some commands (print, register, stats, the balance commands) also
provide the -o/--output-file option, which does the same
thing without needing the shell. Eg:
$ hledger print -o foo.txt
$ hledger print -o - # write to stdout (the default)
Output format
Some commands (print, register, the balance commands) offer a choice
of output format. In addition to the usual plain text format
(txt), there are CSV (csv), HTML
(html), JSON (json) and SQL
(sql). This is controlled by the
-O/--output-format option:
$ hledger print -O csv
or, by a file extension specified with
-o/--output-file:
$ hledger balancesheet -o foo.html # write HTML to foo.html
The -O option can be used to override the file extension
if needed:
$ hledger balancesheet -o foo.txt -O html # write HTML to foo.txt
Some notes about JSON output:
This feature is marked experimental, and not yet much used; you should expect our JSON to evolve. Real-world feedback is welcome.
Our JSON is rather large and verbose, as it is quite a faithful representation of hledger’s internal data types. To understand the JSON, read the Haskell type definitions, which are mostly in https://github.com/simonmichael/hledger/blob/master/hledger-lib/Hledger/Data/Types.hs.
- hledger represents quantities as Decimal values storing up to 255 significant digits, eg for repeating decimals. Such numbers can arise in practice (from automatically-calculated transaction prices), and would break most JSON consumers. So in JSON, we show quantities as simple Numbers with at most 10 decimal places. We don’t limit the number of integer digits, but that part is under your control. We hope this approach will not cause problems in practice; if you find otherwise, please let us know. (Cf #1195)
Notes about SQL output:
SQL output is also marked experimental, and much like JSON could use real-world feedback.
SQL output is expected to work with sqlite, MySQL and PostgreSQL
SQL output is structured with the expectations that statements will be executed in the empty database. If you already have tables created via SQL output of hledger, you would probably want to either clear tables of existing data (via
deleteortruncateSQL statements) or drop tables completely as otherwise your postings will be duped.
Regular expressions
hledger uses regular expressions in a number of places:
- query terms, on the command line and in the
hledger-web search form:
REGEX,desc:REGEX,cur:REGEX,tag:...=REGEX - CSV rules conditional blocks:
if REGEX ... - account alias directives and
options:
alias /REGEX/ = REPLACEMENT,--alias /REGEX/=REPLACEMENT
hledger’s regular expressions come from the regex-tdfa library. If they’re not doing what you expect, it’s important to know exactly what they support:
- they are case insensitive
- they are infix matching (they do not need to match the entire thing being matched)
- they are POSIX ERE (extended regular expressions)
- they also support GNU word
boundaries (
\b,\B,\<,\>) - they do not support backreferences;
if you write
\1, it will match the digit1. Except when doing text replacement, eg in account aliases, where backreferences can be used in the replacement string to reference capturing groups in the search regexp. - they do not support mode
modifiers (
(?s)), character classes (\w,\d), or anything else not mentioned above.
Some things to note:
In the
aliasdirective and--aliasoption, regular expressions must be enclosed in forward slashes (/REGEX/). Elsewhere in hledger, these are not required.In queries, to match a regular expression metacharacter like
$as a literal character, prepend a backslash. Eg to search for amounts with the dollar sign in hledger-web, writecur:\$.On the command line, some metacharacters like
$have a special meaning to the shell and so must be escaped at least once more. See Special characters.
Smart dates
hledger’s user interfaces accept a flexible “smart date” syntax (unlike dates in the journal file). Smart dates allow some english words, can be relative to today’s date, and can have less-significant date parts omitted (defaulting to 1).
Examples:
2004/10/1, 2004-01-01,
2004.9.1 |
exact date, several separators allowed. Year is 4+ digits, month is 1-12, day is 1-31 |
2004 |
start of year |
2004/10 |
start of month |
10/1 |
month and day in current year |
21 |
day in current month |
october, oct |
start of month in current year |
yesterday, today, tomorrow |
-1, 0, 1 days from today |
last/this/next day/week/month/quarter/year |
-1, 0, 1 periods from the current period |
20181201 |
8 digit YYYYMMDD with valid year month and day |
201812 |
6 digit YYYYMM with valid year and month |
Counterexamples - malformed digit sequences might give surprising results:
201813 |
6 digits with an invalid month is parsed as start of 6-digit year |
20181301 |
8 digits with an invalid month is parsed as start of 8-digit year |
20181232 |
8 digits with an invalid day gives an error |
201801012 |
9+ digits beginning with a valid YYYYMMDD gives an error |
Report start & end date
Most hledger reports show the full span of time represented by the journal data, by default. So, the effective report start and end dates will be the earliest and latest transaction or posting dates found in the journal.
Often you will want to see a shorter time span, such as the current
month. You can specify a start and/or end date using -b/--begin, -e/--end, -p/--period or a date: query (described below). All of
these accept the smart date syntax.
Some notes:
- As in Ledger, end dates are exclusive, so you need to write the date after the last day you want to include.
- As noted in reporting options: among start/end dates specified with options, the last (i.e. right-most) option takes precedence.
- The effective report start and end dates are the intersection of the
start/end dates from options and that from
date:queries. That is,date:2019-01 date:2019 -p'2000 to 2030'yields January 2019, the smallest common time span.
Examples:
-b 2016/3/17 |
begin on St. Patrick’s day 2016 |
-e 12/1 |
end at the start of december 1st of the current year (11/30 will be the last date included) |
-b thismonth |
all transactions on or after the 1st of the current month |
-p thismonth |
all transactions in the current month |
date:2016/3/17.. |
the above written as queries instead (.. can also be
replaced with -) |
date:..12/1 |
|
date:thismonth.. |
|
date:thismonth |
Report intervals
A report interval can be specified so that commands like register, balance and activity will divide their reports into multiple
subperiods. The basic intervals can be selected with one of
-D/--daily, -W/--weekly,
-M/--monthly, -Q/--quarterly, or
-Y/--yearly. More complex intervals may be specified with a
period expression. Report intervals
can not be specified with a query.
Period expressions
The -p/--period option accepts period expressions, a
shorthand way of expressing a start date, end date, and/or report
interval all at once.
Here’s a basic period expression specifying the first quarter of 2009. Note, hledger always treats start dates as inclusive and end dates as exclusive:
-p "from 2009/1/1 to 2009/4/1"
Keywords like “from” and “to” are optional, and so are the spaces, as long as you don’t run two dates together. “to” can also be written as “..” or “-”. These are equivalent to the above:
-p "2009/1/1 2009/4/1" |
-p2009/1/1to2009/4/1 |
-p2009/1/1..2009/4/1 |
Dates are smart dates, so if the current year is 2009, the above can also be written as:
-p "1/1 4/1" |
-p "january-apr" |
-p "this year to 4/1" |
If you specify only one date, the missing start or end date will be the earliest or latest transaction in your journal:
-p "from 2009/1/1" |
everything after january 1, 2009 |
-p "from 2009/1" |
the same |
-p "from 2009" |
the same |
-p "to 2009" |
everything before january 1, 2009 |
A single date with no “from” or “to” defines both the start and end date like so:
-p "2009" |
the year 2009; equivalent to “2009/1/1 to 2010/1/1” |
-p "2009/1" |
the month of jan; equivalent to “2009/1/1 to 2009/2/1” |
-p "2009/1/1" |
just that day; equivalent to “2009/1/1 to 2009/1/2” |
Or you can specify a single quarter like so:
-p "2009Q1" |
first quarter of 2009, equivalent to “2009/1/1 to 2009/4/1” |
-p "q4" |
fourth quarter of the current year |
The argument of -p can also begin with, or be, a report interval expression. The basic
report intervals are daily, weekly,
monthly, quarterly, or yearly,
which have the same effect as the
-D,-W,-M,-Q, or
-Y flags. Between report interval and start/end dates (if
any), the word in is optional. Examples:
-p "weekly from 2009/1/1 to 2009/4/1" |
-p "monthly in 2008" |
-p "quarterly" |
Note that weekly, monthly,
quarterly and yearly intervals will always
start on the first day on week, month, quarter or year accordingly, and
will end on the last day of same period, even if associated period
expression specifies different explicit start and end date.
For example:
-p "weekly from 2009/1/1 to 2009/4/1" |
starts on 2008/12/29, closest preceding Monday |
-p "monthly in 2008/11/25" |
starts on 2018/11/01 |
-p "quarterly from 2009-05-05 to 2009-06-01" |
starts on 2009/04/01, ends on 2009/06/30, which are first and last days of Q2 2009 |
-p "yearly from 2009-12-29" |
starts on 2009/01/01, first day of 2009 |
The following more complex report intervals are also supported:
biweekly, fortnightly, bimonthly,
every day|week|month|quarter|year,
every N days|weeks|months|quarters|years.
All of these will start on the first day of the requested period and end on the last one, as described above.
Examples:
-p "bimonthly from 2008" |
periods will have boundaries on 2008/01/01, 2008/03/01, … |
-p "every 2 weeks" |
starts on closest preceding Monday |
-p "every 5 month from 2009/03" |
periods will have boundaries on 2009/03/01, 2009/08/01, … |
If you want intervals that start on arbitrary day of your choosing and span a week, month or year, you need to use any of the following:
every Nth day of week, every WEEKDAYNAME
(eg mon|tue|wed|thu|fri|sat|sun),
every Nth day [of month],
every Nth WEEKDAYNAME [of month],
every MM/DD [of year],
every Nth MMM [of year],
every MMM Nth [of year].
Examples:
-p "every 2nd day of week" |
periods will go from Tue to Tue |
-p "every Tue" |
same |
-p "every 15th day" |
period boundaries will be on 15th of each month |
-p "every 2nd Monday" |
period boundaries will be on second Monday of each month |
-p "every 11/05" |
yearly periods with boundaries on 5th of Nov |
-p "every 5th Nov" |
same |
-p "every Nov 5th" |
same |
Show historical balances at end of 15th each month (N is exclusive end date):
hledger balance -H -p "every 16th day"
Group postings from start of wednesday to end of next tuesday (N is start date and exclusive end date):
hledger register checking -p "every 3rd day of week"
Depth limiting
With the --depth N option (short form: -N),
commands like account, balance and register will
show only the uppermost accounts in the account tree, down to level N.
Use this when you want a summary with less detail. This flag has the
same effect as a depth: query argument (so -2,
--depth=2 or depth:2 are equivalent).
Pivoting
Normally hledger sums amounts, and organizes them in a hierarchy,
based on account name. The --pivot FIELD option causes it
to sum and organize hierarchy based on the value of some other field
instead. FIELD can be: code, description,
payee, note, or the full name (case
insensitive) of any tag. As with account
names, values containing colon:separated:parts will be
displayed hierarchically in reports.
--pivot is a general option affecting all reports; you
can think of hledger transforming the journal before any other
processing, replacing every posting’s account name with the value of the
specified field on that posting, inheriting it from the transaction or
using a blank value if it’s not present.
An example:
2016/02/16 Member Fee Payment
assets:bank account 2 EUR
income:member fees -2 EUR ; member: John Doe
Normal balance report showing account names:
$ hledger balance
2 EUR assets:bank account
-2 EUR income:member fees
--------------------
0
Pivoted balance report, using member: tag values instead:
$ hledger balance --pivot member
2 EUR
-2 EUR John Doe
--------------------
0
One way to show only amounts with a member: value (using a query, described below):
$ hledger balance --pivot member tag:member=.
-2 EUR John Doe
--------------------
-2 EUR
Another way (the acct: query matches against the pivoted “account name”):
$ hledger balance --pivot member acct:.
-2 EUR John Doe
--------------------
-2 EUR
Valuation
Instead of reporting amounts in their original commodity, hledger can
convert them to cost/sale amount (using the conversion rate recorded in
the transaction), or to market value (using some market price on a
certain date). This is controlled by the
--value=TYPE[,COMMODITY] option, but we also provide the
simpler -B/-V/-X flags, and
usually one of those is all you need.
-B: Cost
The -B/--cost flag converts amounts to their cost or
sale amount at transaction time, if they have a transaction price
specified.
-V: Value
The -V/--market flag converts amounts to market value in
their default valuation commodity, using the market prices in effect on the valuation
date(s), if any. More on these in a minute.
-X: Value in specified commodity
The -X/--exchange=COMM option is like -V,
except you tell it which currency you want to convert to, and it tries
to convert everything to that.
Valuation date
Since market prices can change from day to day, market value reports have a valuation date (or more than one), which determines which market prices will be used.
For single period reports, if an explicit report end date is specified, that will be used as the valuation date; otherwise the valuation date is “today”.
For multiperiod reports, each column/period is valued on the last day of the period, by default.
Market prices
(experimental)
To convert a commodity A to its market value in another commodity B, hledger looks for a suitable market price (exchange rate) as follows, in this order of preference :
A declared market price or inferred market price: A’s latest market price in B on or before the valuation date as declared by a P directive, or (with the
--infer-valueflag) inferred from transaction prices.A reverse market price: the inverse of a declared or inferred market price from B to A.
A a forward chain of market prices: a synthetic price formed by combining the shortest chain of “forward” (only 1 above) market prices, leading from A to B.
A any chain of market prices: a chain of any market prices, including both forward and reverse prices (1 and 2 above), leading from A to B.
Amounts for which no applicable market price can be found, are not converted.
–infer-value: market prices from transactions
(experimental)
Normally, market value in hledger is fully controlled by, and requires, P directives in your journal. Since adding and updating those can be a chore, and since transactions usually take place at close to market value, why not use the recorded transaction prices as additional market prices (as Ledger does) ? We could produce value reports without needing P directives at all.
Adding the --infer-value flag to -V,
-X or --value enables this. So for example,
hledger bs -V --infer-value will get market prices both
from P directives and from transactions.
There is a downside: value reports can sometimes be affected in
confusing/undesired ways by your journal entries. If this happens to
you, read all of this Valuation section
carefully, and try adding --debug or --debug=2
to troubleshoot.
--infer-value can infer market prices from:
multicommodity transactions with explicit prices (
@/@@)multicommodity transactions with implicit prices (no
@, two commodities, unbalanced). (With these, the order of postings matters.hledger print -xcan be useful for troubleshooting.)but not, currently, from “more correct” multicommodity transactions (no
@, multiple commodities, balanced).
Valuation commodity
(experimental)
When you specify a valuation commodity (-X COMM
or --value TYPE,COMM):
hledger will convert all amounts to COMM, wherever it can find a
suitable market price (including by reversing or chaining prices).
When you leave the valuation commodity unspecified
(-V or --value TYPE):
For each commodity A, hledger picks a default valuation commodity as
follows, in this order of preference:
The price commodity from the latest P-declared market price for A on or before valuation date.
The price commodity from the latest P-declared market price for A on any date. (Allows conversion to proceed when there are inferred prices before the valuation date.)
If there are no P directives at all (any commodity or date) and the
--infer-valueflag is used: the price commodity from the latest transaction-inferred price for A on or before valuation date.
This means:
If you have P directives, they determine which commodities
-Vwill convert, and to what.If you have no P directives, and use the
--infer-valueflag, transaction prices determine it.
Amounts for which no valuation commodity can be found are not converted.
Simple valuation examples
Here are some quick examples of -V:
; one euro is worth this many dollars from nov 1
P 2016/11/01 € $1.10
; purchase some euros on nov 3
2016/11/3
assets:euros €100
assets:checking
; the euro is worth fewer dollars by dec 21
P 2016/12/21 € $1.03
How many euros do I have ?
$ hledger -f t.j bal -N euros
€100 assets:euros
What are they worth at end of nov 3 ?
$ hledger -f t.j bal -N euros -V -e 2016/11/4
$110.00 assets:euros
What are they worth after 2016/12/21 ? (no report end date specified, defaults to today)
$ hledger -f t.j bal -N euros -V
$103.00 assets:euros
–value: Flexible valuation
-B, -V and -X are special
cases of the more general --value option:
--value=TYPE[,COMM] TYPE is cost, then, end, now or YYYY-MM-DD.
COMM is an optional commodity symbol.
Shows amounts converted to:
- cost commodity using transaction prices (then optionally to COMM using market prices at period end(s))
- default valuation commodity (or COMM) using market prices at posting dates
- default valuation commodity (or COMM) using market prices at period end(s)
- default valuation commodity (or COMM) using current market prices
- default valuation commodity (or COMM) using market prices at some date
The TYPE part selects cost or value and valuation date:
--value=cost- Convert amounts to cost, using the prices recorded in transactions.
--value=then- Convert amounts to their value in the default valuation commodity, using market prices on each posting’s date. This is currently supported only by the print and register commands.
--value=end- Convert amounts to their value in the default valuation commodity, using market prices on the last day of the report period (or if unspecified, the journal’s end date); or in multiperiod reports, market prices on the last day of each subperiod.
--value=now- Convert amounts to their value in the default valuation commodity using current market prices (as of when report is generated).
--value=YYYY-MM-DD- Convert amounts to their value in the default valuation commodity using market prices on this date.
To select a different valuation commodity, add the optional
,COMM part: a comma, then the target commodity’s symbol.
Eg: --value=now,EUR. hledger will do its
best to convert amounts to this commodity, deducing market prices as described above.
More valuation examples
Here are some examples showing the effect of --value, as
seen with print:
P 2000-01-01 A 1 B
P 2000-02-01 A 2 B
P 2000-03-01 A 3 B
P 2000-04-01 A 4 B
2000-01-01
(a) 1 A @ 5 B
2000-02-01
(a) 1 A @ 6 B
2000-03-01
(a) 1 A @ 7 B
Show the cost of each posting:
$ hledger -f- print --value=cost
2000-01-01
(a) 5 B
2000-02-01
(a) 6 B
2000-03-01
(a) 7 B
Show the value as of the last day of the report period (2000-02-29):
$ hledger -f- print --value=end date:2000/01-2000/03
2000-01-01
(a) 2 B
2000-02-01
(a) 2 B
With no report period specified, that shows the value as of the last day of the journal (2000-03-01):
$ hledger -f- print --value=end
2000-01-01
(a) 3 B
2000-02-01
(a) 3 B
2000-03-01
(a) 3 B
Show the current value (the 2000-04-01 price is still in effect today):
$ hledger -f- print --value=now
2000-01-01
(a) 4 B
2000-02-01
(a) 4 B
2000-03-01
(a) 4 B
Show the value on 2000/01/15:
$ hledger -f- print --value=2000-01-15
2000-01-01
(a) 1 B
2000-02-01
(a) 1 B
2000-03-01
(a) 1 B
You may need to explicitly set a commodity’s display style, when reverse prices are used. Eg this output might be surprising:
P 2000-01-01 A 2B
2000-01-01
a 1B
b
$ hledger print -x -X A
2000-01-01
a 0
b 0
Explanation: because there’s no amount or commodity directive specifying a display style for A, 0.5A gets the default style, which shows no decimal digits. Because the displayed amount looks like zero, the commodity symbol and minus sign are not displayed either. Adding a commodity directive sets a more useful display style for A:
P 2000-01-01 A 2B
commodity 0.00A
2000-01-01
a 1B
b
$ hledger print -X A
2000-01-01
a 0.50A
b -0.50A
Effect of valuation on reports
Here is a reference for how valuation is supposed to affect each part of hledger’s reports (and a glossary). (It’s wide, you’ll have to scroll sideways.) It may be useful when troubleshooting. If you find problems, please report them, ideally with a reproducible example. Related: #329, #1083.
| Report type | -B, --value=cost |
-V, -X |
--value=then |
--value=end |
--value=DATE, --value=now |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| posting amounts | cost | value at report end or today | value at posting date | value at report or journal end | value at DATE/today |
| balance assertions/assignments | unchanged | unchanged | unchanged | unchanged | unchanged |
| register | |||||
| starting balance (-H) | cost | value at day before report or journal start | not supported | value at day before report or journal start | value at DATE/today |
| posting amounts | cost | value at report end or today | value at posting date | value at report or journal end | value at DATE/today |
| summary posting amounts with report interval | summarised cost | value at period ends | sum of postings in interval, valued at interval start | value at period ends | value at DATE/today |
| running total/average | sum/average of displayed values | sum/average of displayed values | sum/average of displayed values | sum/average of displayed values | sum/average of displayed values |
| balance (bs, bse, cf, is) | |||||
| balance changes | sums of costs | value at report end or today of sums of postings | not supported | value at report or journal end of sums of postings | value at DATE/today of sums of postings |
| budget amounts (–budget) | like balance changes | like balance changes | not supported | like balances | like balance changes |
| grand total | sum of displayed values | sum of displayed values | not supported | sum of displayed values | sum of displayed values |
| balance (bs, bse, cf, is) with report interval | |||||
| starting balances (-H) | sums of costs of postings before report start | value at report start of sums of all postings before report start | not supported | value at report start of sums of all postings before report start | sums of postings before report start |
| balance changes (bal, is, bs –change, cf –change) | sums of costs of postings in period | same as –value=end | not supported | balance change in each period, valued at period ends | value at DATE/today of sums of postings |
| end balances (bal -H, is –H, bs, cf) | sums of costs of postings from before report start to period end | same as –value=end | not supported | period end balances, valued at period ends | value at DATE/today of sums of postings |
| budget amounts (–budget) | like balance changes/end balances | like balance changes/end balances | not supported | like balances | like balance changes/end balances |
| row totals, row averages (-T, -A) | sums, averages of displayed values | sums, averages of displayed values | not supported | sums, averages of displayed values | sums, averages of displayed values |
| column totals | sums of displayed values | sums of displayed values | not supported | sums of displayed values | sums of displayed values |
| grand total, grand average | sum, average of column totals | sum, average of column totals | not supported | sum, average of column totals | sum, average of column totals |
--cumulative is omitted to save space, it works like
-H but with a zero starting balance.
Glossary:
- cost
- calculated using price(s) recorded in the transaction(s).
- value
- market value using available market price declarations, or the unchanged amount if no conversion rate can be found.
- report start
- the first day of the report period specified with -b or -p or date:, otherwise today.
- report or journal start
- the first day of the report period specified with -b or -p or date:, otherwise the earliest transaction date in the journal, otherwise today.
- report end
- the last day of the report period specified with -e or -p or date:, otherwise today.
- report or journal end
- the last day of the report period specified with -e or -p or date:, otherwise the latest transaction date in the journal, otherwise today.
- report interval
- a flag (-D/-W/-M/-Q/-Y) or period expression that activates the report’s multi-period mode (whether showing one or many subperiods).
COMMANDS
hledger provides a number of subcommands; hledger with
no arguments shows a list.
If you install additional hledger-* packages, or if you
put programs or scripts named hledger-NAME in your PATH,
these will also be listed as subcommands.
Run a subcommand by writing its name as first argument (eg
hledger incomestatement). You can also write one of the
standard short aliases displayed in parentheses in the command list
(hledger b), or any any unambiguous prefix of a command
name (hledger inc).
Here are all the builtin commands in alphabetical order. See also
hledger for a more organised command list, and
hledger CMD -h for detailed command help.
accounts
include(Hledger/Cli/Commands/Accounts.md)
activity
include(Hledger/Cli/Commands/Activity.md)
add
include(Hledger/Cli/Commands/Add.md)
aregister
include(Hledger/Cli/Commands/Aregister.md)
balance
include({{Hledger/Cli/Commands/Balance.md}})
balancesheet
include({{Hledger/Cli/Commands/Balancesheet.md}})
balancesheetequity
include({{Hledger/Cli/Commands/Balancesheetequity.md}})
cashflow
include({{Hledger/Cli/Commands/Cashflow.md}})
check-dates
include({{Hledger/Cli/Commands/Checkdates.md}})
check-leafnames
include({{Hledger/Cli/Commands/Checkleafnames.md}})
close
include({{Hledger/Cli/Commands/Close.md}})
codes
include({{Hledger/Cli/Commands/Codes.md}})
commodities
include({{Hledger/Cli/Commands/Commodities.md}})
descriptions
include({{Hledger/Cli/Commands/Descriptions.md}})
diff
include({{Hledger/Cli/Commands/Diff.md}})
files
include({{Hledger/Cli/Commands/Files.md}})
help
include({{Hledger/Cli/Commands/Help.md}})
import
include({{Hledger/Cli/Commands/Import.md}})
incomestatement
include({{Hledger/Cli/Commands/Incomestatement.md}})
notes
include({{Hledger/Cli/Commands/Notes.md}})
payees
include({{Hledger/Cli/Commands/Payees.md}})
prices
include({{Hledger/Cli/Commands/Prices.md}})
include({{Hledger/Cli/Commands/Print.md}})
print-unique
include({{Hledger/Cli/Commands/Printunique.md}})
register
include({{Hledger/Cli/Commands/Register.md}})
register-match
include({{Hledger/Cli/Commands/Registermatch.md}})
rewrite
include({{Hledger/Cli/Commands/Rewrite.md}})
roi
include({{Hledger/Cli/Commands/Roi.md}})
stats
include({{Hledger/Cli/Commands/Stats.md}})
tags
include({{Hledger/Cli/Commands/Tags.md}})
test
include({{Hledger/Cli/Commands/Test.md}})
Add-on commands
hledger also searches for external add-on commands, and will include
these in the commands list. These are programs or scripts in your PATH
whose name starts with hledger- and ends with a recognised
file extension (currently: no extension,
bat,com,exe,
hs,lhs,pl,py,rb,rkt,sh).
Add-ons can be invoked like any hledger command, but there are a few
things to be aware of. Eg if the hledger-web add-on is
installed,
hledger -h webshows hledger’s help, whilehledger web -hshows hledger-web’s help.Flags specific to the add-on must have a preceding
--to hide them from hledger. Sohledger web --serve --port 9000will be rejected; you must usehledger web -- --serve --port 9000.You can always run add-ons directly if preferred:
hledger-web --serve --port 9000.
Add-ons are a relatively easy way to add local features or experiment with new ideas. They can be written in any language, but haskell scripts have a big advantage: they can use the same hledger (and haskell) library functions that built-in commands do, for command-line options, journal parsing, reporting, etc.
Two important add-ons are the hledger-ui and hledger-web user interfaces. These are maintained and released along with hledger:
ui
hledger-ui provides an efficient terminal interface.
web
hledger-web provides a simple web interface.
Third party add-ons, maintained separately from hledger, include:
iadd
hledger-iadd is a more interactive, terminal UI replacement for the add command.
interest
hledger-interest generates interest transactions for an account according to various schemes.
A few more experimental or old add-ons can be found in hledger’s bin/ directory. These are typically prototypes and not guaranteed to work.
ENVIRONMENT
m4_dnl Standard LEDGER_FILE description: LEDGER_FILE
COLUMNS The screen width used by the register command. Default: the full terminal width.
NO_COLOR If this variable exists with any value, hledger will not use ANSI color codes in terminal output. This overrides the –color/–colour option.
FILES
m4_dnl Standard input files description: Reads files
LIMITATIONS
The need to precede addon command options with -- when
invoked from hledger is awkward.
When input data contains non-ascii characters, a suitable system locale must be configured (or there will be an unhelpful error). Eg on POSIX, set LANG to something other than C.
In a Microsoft Windows CMD window, non-ascii characters and colours are not supported.
On Windows, non-ascii characters may not display correctly when running a hledger built in CMD in MSYS/CYGWIN, or vice-versa.
In a Cygwin/MSYS/Mintty window, the tab key is not supported in hledger add.
Not all of Ledger’s journal file syntax is supported. See file format differences.
On large data files, hledger is slower and uses more memory than Ledger.
TROUBLESHOOTING
Here are some issues you might encounter when you run hledger (and remember you can also seek help from the IRC channel, mail list or bug tracker):
Successfully installed, but “No command ‘hledger’
found”
stack and cabal install binaries into a special directory, which should
be added to your PATH environment variable. Eg on unix-like systems,
that is ~/.local/bin and ~/.cabal/bin respectively.
I set a custom LEDGER_FILE, but hledger is still using the
default file
LEDGER_FILE should be a real environment variable, not just
a shell variable. The command env | grep LEDGER_FILE should
show it. You may need to use export. Here’s an explanation.
Getting errors like “Illegal byte sequence” or “Invalid or
incomplete multibyte or wide character” or “commitAndReleaseBuffer:
invalid argument (invalid character)”
Programs compiled with GHC (hledger, haskell build tools, etc.) need to
have a UTF-8-aware locale configured in the environment, otherwise they
will fail with these kinds of errors when they encounter non-ascii
characters.
To fix it, set the LANG environment variable to some locale which supports UTF-8. The locale you choose must be installed on your system.
Here’s an example of setting LANG temporarily, on Ubuntu GNU/Linux:
$ file my.journal
my.journal: UTF-8 Unicode text # the file is UTF8-encoded
$ echo $LANG
C # LANG is set to the default locale, which does not support UTF8
$ locale -a # which locales are installed ?
C
en_US.utf8 # here's a UTF8-aware one we can use
POSIX
$ LANG=en_US.utf8 hledger -f my.journal print # ensure it is used for this command
If available, C.UTF-8 will also work. If your preferred
locale isn’t listed by locale -a, you might need to install
it. Eg on Ubuntu/Debian:
$ apt-get install language-pack-fr
$ locale -a
C
en_US.utf8
fr_BE.utf8
fr_CA.utf8
fr_CH.utf8
fr_FR.utf8
fr_LU.utf8
POSIX
$ LANG=fr_FR.utf8 hledger -f my.journal print
Here’s how you could set it permanently, if you use a bash shell:
$ echo "export LANG=en_US.utf8" >>~/.bash_profile
$ bash --login
Exact spelling and capitalisation may be important. Note the
difference on MacOS (UTF-8, not utf8). Some
platforms (eg ubuntu) allow variant spellings, but others (eg macos)
require it to be exact:
$ locale -a | grep -iE en_us.*utf
en_US.UTF-8
$ LANG=en_US.UTF-8 hledger -f my.journal print