fixes

README

@@ -914,12 +914,13 @@ If you are an accountant, or you are familiar with accounting
 terminology, then you might be tearing your hair out after reading the
 above.  Please don't!
 
-Ledger is a lightweight tool that gets people comfortable with their
-finances.  Contemporary accounting practices will often seem
-counter-intuitive and confusing to the layman.  To make Ledger more
-accessible, it deviates from the accounting conventions and
-terminology.  However, Ledger is flexible enough that you can
-interpret your transactions however you wish.
+Ledger is intended to make people comfortable with their finances; to
+help them better control the flow of their money.  Contemporary
+accounting practices, on the other hand, often seem counter-intuitive
+and confusing to the layman.  To make Ledger more accessible, it
+avoids the use of standard accounting conventions and terminology.
+However, Ledger is flexible enough that you may interpret what is
+happening however you wish.
 
 Most probably, the following section will confuse you, and you should
 skip it if you've managed to understand everything so far.  However,
@@ -1101,13 +1102,12 @@ ledger, with the attached prefix "Billable":
 
 * Running Ledger
 
-Now that you have an orderly and well-organized general ledger, it's
-time to start generating some orderly and well-organized reports.
-This is where the Ledger tool comes in.  With it, you can balance your
+Once you have an orderly and well-organized general ledger, the next
+step is to generate orderly and well-organized reports.  This is where
+the Ledger command-line tool comes in.  With it, you can balance your
 checkbook, see where your money is going, tell whether you've made a
-profit this year, and even compute the present day value of your
-retirement accounts.  And all with the simplest of interfaces: the
-command-line.
+profit this year, and compute the present value of your retirement
+accounts.  And all with the simplest of interfaces, the command-line.
 
 The most often used command will be the "balance" command:
 
@@ -1344,26 +1344,66 @@ There is a shell script in the distribution called "entry", which
 simplifies the task of adding a new entry to your ledger, and then
 launches =vi= to let you confirm that the entry looks appropriate.
 
-** Option summary
+** Using command options
+
+With all of the commands, various command-line options are allowed
+that will modify the behavior of the command in some way.  And while
+the basic commands themselves are useful, you will often find
+yourselves adding option flags to the command-line to modify those
+commands.
+
+The command-line options always occur before the command word.  This
+is done to distinguish them from the matching expressions that always
+occur after the command word.  The basic form of any command is:
+
+<example>
+ledger [OPTIONS] COMMAND [MATCH]
+</example>
+
+Both the OPTIONS and MATCH expressions are optional.  You could, for
+example, just use "ledger balance" without any modification.  This
+would print the summarized total of all account types.  But to get
+more specific reporting, or to change the way the output looks, you
+must use the options.
 
 *** Basic options
 
-**-v** ::
-  Display the version of ledger being used.
+The =--help= (=-h=) option causes ledger to print a summary of all the
+options, and what they are used for.  This can be a handy way to
+remember which options do what.  This help screen is also printed if
+ledger is run without a command.
 
-**-h** ::
-  Print out quick help on the various options and commands.
+=--version= (=-v=) prints the current version of ledger and exits.
+This is useful for sending bug reports (to johnw@newartisans.com), to
+let the author know which version of ledger you are using.
 
-**-f FILE[<verbatim>=</verbatim>ACCOUNT]** ::
-  Read ledger entries from FILE.  This takes precedence over the
-  environment variable LEDGER.  If "<verbatim>=</verbatim>ACCOUNT" is
-  appended to the filename, then all of the entries are seen as if the
-  transactions accounts were prefixed by "ACCOUNT:".  There may be
-  multiple occurrences of the =-f= option.
+=--init FILE= (=-i FILE=) causes FILE to be read by ledger before any
+other ledger file.  This file may not contain any transactions, but it
+may contain option settings.  To specify options in the init file, use
+the same syntax as the command-line.  Here's an example init file:
 
-**-i FILE** ::
-  Read in the list of patterns to include/exclude from FILE.
-  Ordinarily, these are specified as arguments after the command.
+<example>
+--price-db ~/finance/.pricedb
+</example>
+
+Option settings on the command-line or in the environment always take
+precedence over settings in the init file.
+
+=--file FILE= (=-f FILE=) reads FILE as a ledger file.  This command
+may be used multiple times.  FILE may also be a list of file names
+separated by colons.  Typically, the environment variable
+=LEDGER_FILE= is set, rather than using this command-line option.
+
+=--cache FILE= identifies FILE as the default binary cache file.  That
+is, if the ledger files to be read are specified using the environment
+variable =LEDGER_FILE=, then whenever a command is finished a binary
+copy will be written to the specified cache, to speed up the loading
+time of subsequent queries.  This filename can also be given using the
+environment variable =LEDGER_CACHE=, or by putting the option into
+your init file.
+
+=--output FILE= (=-o FILE=) redirects output from any command to
+=FILE=.  By default, all output goes to standard output.
 
 *** Filtering options
 
@@ -1505,21 +1545,6 @@ launches =vi= to let you confirm that the entry looks appropriate.
   use: -p "$=0.00280112 AU" (or whatever the current exchange rate
   is).
 
-** Environment variables
-
-=LEDGER= ::
-  A colon-separated list of files to be parsed whenever ledger is run.
-  Easier than typing =-f= all the time.
-
-=PRICE_HIST= ::
-  The ledger file used to hold pricing data.  =~/.pricedb= would be a
-  good choice.
-
-=PRICE_EXP= ::
-  The number of minutes before pricing data becomes out-of-date.  The
-  default is one day.  Use =-L= to temporarily decrease or increase
-  the value.
-
 Footnotes:
 [1]  In some special cases, it will automatically balance the entry
      for you.

binary.cc

@@ -13,8 +13,8 @@
 
 namespace ledger {
 
-       unsigned long binary_magic_number = 0xFFEED765;
-static unsigned long format_version      = 0x0002000a;
+const unsigned long	   binary_magic_number = 0xFFEED765;
+static const unsigned long format_version      = 0x0002000b;
 
 static std::vector<account_t *>   accounts;
 static account_t::ident_t	  ident;
@@ -82,7 +82,7 @@ void read_binary_amount(std::istream& in, amount_t& amt)
 {
   commodity_t::ident_t id;
   read_binary_number(in, id);
-  if (id == 0xffff)
+  if (id == 0xffffffff)
     amt.commodity = NULL;
   else
     amt.commodity = commodities[id];
@@ -94,9 +94,7 @@ transaction_t * read_binary_transaction(std::istream& in, entry_t * entry)
 {
   transaction_t * xact = new transaction_t(entry, NULL);
 
-  account_t::ident_t id;
-  read_binary_number(in, id);
-  xact->account = accounts[id];
+  xact->account = accounts[read_binary_number<account_t::ident_t>(in)];
   xact->account->add_transaction(xact);
 
   read_binary_amount(in, xact->amount);
@@ -131,10 +129,8 @@ commodity_t * read_binary_commodity(std::istream& in)
   commodity_t * commodity = new commodity_t;
   commodities.push_back(commodity);
 
-  commodity_t::ident_t id;
-  read_binary_number(in, id);
-  commodity->ident = id;
-  assert(id == commodities.size() - 1);
+  commodity->ident = read_binary_number<commodity_t::ident_t>(in);
+  assert(commodity->ident == commodities.size() - 1);
 
   read_binary_string(in, commodity->symbol);
   read_binary_string(in, commodity->name);
@@ -162,13 +158,12 @@ account_t * read_binary_account(std::istream& in, account_t * master = NULL)
   account_t * acct = new account_t(NULL);
   accounts.push_back(acct);
 
-  account_t::ident_t id;
-  read_binary_number(in, id);
-  acct->ident = id;
-  assert(id == accounts.size() - 1);
+  acct->ident = read_binary_number<account_t::ident_t>(in);
+  assert(acct->ident == accounts.size() - 1);
 
+  account_t::ident_t id;
   read_binary_number(in, id);	// parent id
-  if (id == 0xffff)
+  if (id == 0xffffffff)
     acct->parent = NULL;
   else
     acct->parent = accounts[id];
@@ -289,7 +284,7 @@ void write_binary_amount(std::ostream& out, const amount_t& amt)
   if (amt.commodity)
     write_binary_number(out, amt.commodity->ident);
   else
-    write_binary_number<commodity_t::ident_t>(out, 0xffff);
+    write_binary_number<commodity_t::ident_t>(out, 0xffffffff);
 
   amt.write_quantity(out);
 }
@@ -349,7 +344,7 @@ void write_binary_account(std::ostream& out, account_t * account)
   if (account->parent)
     write_binary_number(out, account->parent->ident);
   else
-    write_binary_number<account_t::ident_t>(out, 0xffff);
+    write_binary_number<account_t::ident_t>(out, 0xffffffff);
 
   write_binary_string(out, account->name);
   write_binary_string(out, account->note);

ledger.h

@@ -229,7 +229,7 @@ unsigned int parse_textual_journal(std::istream& in,
 				   journal_t *	 ledger,
 				   account_t *	 master = NULL);
 
-extern unsigned long binary_magic_number;
+extern const unsigned long binary_magic_number;
 
 unsigned int read_binary_journal(std::istream&	in,
 				 journal_t *	journal,

main.cc

@@ -97,12 +97,16 @@ int main(int argc, char * argv[], char * envp[])
 
   process_environment(envp, "LEDGER_");
 
+#if 1
+  // These are here until 3.x, for backwards compatability.
+
   if (const char * p = std::getenv("LEDGER"))
     process_option("file", p);
   if (const char * p = std::getenv("PRICE_HIST"))
     process_option("price-db", p);
   if (const char * p = std::getenv("PRICE_EXP"))
     process_option("price-exp", p);
+#endif
 
   TIMER_STOP(process_env);
 
@@ -123,9 +127,11 @@ int main(int argc, char * argv[], char * envp[])
       journal->sources.pop_front();	// remove cache_file
 
       strings_list exceptions;
+#if 0
       std::set_difference(journal->sources.begin(), journal->sources.end(),
 			  config->files.begin(), config->files.end(),
 			  exceptions.begin());
+#endif
 
       if (entry_count == 0 || exceptions.size() > 0) {
 	journal.reset(new journal_t);

util.h

@@ -0,0 +1,38 @@
+#ifndef _UTIL_H
+#define _UTIL_H
+
+inline char * skip_ws(char * ptr) {
+  while (*ptr == ' ' || *ptr == '\t' || *ptr == '\n')
+    ptr++;
+  return ptr;
+}
+
+inline char peek_next_nonws(std::istream& in) {
+  char c = in.peek();
+  while (! in.eof() && std::isspace(c)) {
+    in.get(c);
+    c = in.peek();
+  }
+  return c;
+}
+
+#define READ_INTO(str, targ, size, var, cond) {	\
+  char * _p = targ;				\
+  var = str.peek();				\
+  while (! str.eof() && (cond)) {		\
+    str.get(var);				\
+    if (str.eof())				\
+      break;					\
+    if (var == '\\') {				\
+      str.get(var);				\
+      if (in.eof())				\
+	break;					\
+    }						\
+    *_p++ = var;				\
+    var = str.peek();				\
+  }						\
+  assert(_p < targ + ((size) - 1));		\
+  *_p = '\0';					\
+}
+
+#endif // _UTIL_H