ledger/NEWS

			     Ledger NEWS

* 2.0

- The code base has been rewritten for clarity and consistency.  As a
  result, the code is much simpler and more robust (and in most cases
  faster).

- Register reports now show the account being credited/debited.  Use
  new -o option to see "other accounts" -- or the account the
  credit/debit came from.  (This was the old behavior in 1.x, but can
  lead to confusing reports when viewing accounts with subaccounts.)
  The -o option also works for balance reports, where it will show all
  the account totals related to your query.

- Regexps specified after the command are applied to account names
  only.  To search on a payee name, use "--" to separate the two kinds
  of regexps.  For example, to find payee's named John within all
  Expenses accounts:

    ledger register expenses -- john

- The use of "+" and "-" in ledger files (to specify permanent
  regexps) has been removed.

- The -G switch no longer generates gnuplot-safe data.  It now reports
  totals in terms of net gain/loss.

- To include entries from a file into a specific account, use:

    @ ACCOUNT
    !include FILE
    @@

  All entries specified within the "@ ACCOUNT/@@" range will be added
  under that account.

- If the environment variable LEDGER_CACHE is set to a filename, a a
  binary dump of the current ledger will be written then, to speed up
  later queries of the same data.  This only happens if no "-f" flag
  was seen (i.e., if the LEDGER environment variable is used).

- There are several new default reporting styles, which work both in
  the balance and register reports:

    -O  Show base values (this is the default, and old behavior)
    -B  Show the basis cost of commodities
    -V  Show the last known market value of commodities
    -G  Report net gain/loss (shows commodity changes only)
    -A  Report average value (arithmetic mean)
    -D  Report deviation from the average value
    -Z  Report the trend (average rate of change)
    -W  Report the trend, with older values affecting the trend less
    -X  Report expected amount for the next transaction

- Value expressions are now supported, where the totals reported can
  be changed using -t and -T and an expression string composed of:

     a    amount
     B    current balance
     T    amount total (B + a)
     c    cost
     C    cost total
     v    market value(amount, date)
     V    total market value(amount total, date)
     g    net gain (v - c)
     G    total net gain (V - C)
     d    date (in seconds past the epoch)
     i    index (within the report)
     o    item age = date - report begin date
     w    item newness = report end date - date

     b    report begin date
     e    report end date
     
  P(x,y)  market price of x at time y (i.e., V = p(A,d))
     Mx   total arthmetic of x (x/n)
     Bx   deviation = a - x
     Ax   absolute (positive) value of x
    {x}   parse x as a ledger amount
    /s/   1 if full account name matches s

  in precedence order:
    -?[0-9]*.[0-9]+ numerical constants
    binary operators: * /
    binary operators: + -
    comparison operators: = < <= > >=
    logical operators: ! & |
    (x) parenthetical grouping

  The standard reports are therefore implemented as:

    -O  ==  -t a -T A
    -B  ==  -t c -T C
    -V  ==  -t c -T V
    -G  ==  -t g -T G
    -A  ==  -t a -T MA
    -D  ==  -t a -T DMA
    -T  ==  -t a -T MDMA
    -W  ==  -t a -T MD(MA*(d-b/e-b))
    -X  ==  -t a -T a+MD(MA*(d-b/e-b))

- The -l flag now takes an expression string as a "predicate".
  Therefore, to equal the old behavior of "-l $100", you would use:

    -l AT<{$100}

- The -S flag now takes an expression string, which yields the value
  that will be sorted on.

- User-specified format strings are supported with a -F option.  The
  strings are very much like printf format strings, with the following
  syntax for each substitution:

    %?-m.MX

  Each part of the above except for X is optional, and means:

    ?  field is blank if reporting on a "subsequent line" (within
       the register report, when viewing splits)
    -  left justify field (default is right)
    m  minimum width of the field
    .  indicates that a maximum width is being specified
    M  maximum width of the field; values are truncated to fit

  And where X may be any one of:

    %              self-insert
    d              same as %[%Y/%m/%d]
    [datefmt]      pass 'datefmt' to strftime for the entry
    p              the payee
    a              the custom account name (report dependent)
    n              the real account name (balance report only)
    N              full account name (balance report only)
    t              whatever the specified value expression is
    T              whatever the specified total expression is
    (expr)         insert an arbitrary style expression

  The default format for the register and balance reports are:

    %?10d %?-.20p %-.22a %12.66t %12.80T
    %20T %-a

- Automated transactions now use a single value expression as a
  predicate.  This means the new syntax is:

    = VALUE-EXPR
      TRANSACTIONS...

  Only one VALUE-EXPR is supported, compared to the multiple account
  regexps supported before.  By using a VALUE-EXPR as a predicate,
  matching may now be much more comprehensive and selective.

* 1.7 (never released)

- Pricing histories are now supported, so that ledger remembers
  historical pricing of all commodities, and can give register reports
  based on past and present market values, as well as the original
  cost basis.  See README for more details on the new option switches.

* 1.6

- Can now parse timeclock files.  These are simple timelogs that track
  in/out events, which can be maintained using my timeclock tool.  By
  allowing ledger to parse these, it means that reporting can be done
  on them in the same way as a ledger file (the commodities is "h",
  for hours); and it means that doing things like tracking billable
  hours for clients, and invoicing those clients to transfer those
  hours into a dollar value via a receivable account, is now trivial.
  See the docs for more on how to do this.

- Began keeping NEWS file. :)