QOF, applications and the use of QSF maps.

Principles

For "GnuCash" substitute any other application using QOF.

1. QOF cannot dictate the location of other maps.
2. GnuCash can pass a path to the appropriate map to QSF.
   • (Add this to the API! - new func: is_qsf_object_with_map)
3. QOF can have default maps. GnuCash would use these in addition to any of it's own or any user's maps.
4. Users can modify maps and store in other directories to modify defaults or reference lookup strings. Calculations themselves should probably be left untouched by users!
5. GnuCash is free to provide a means to edit user-modifiable sections of any map or simply advise on editing the XML directly.
6. GnuCash can provide the interface for the user to select the most suitable map. This can include describing the map instead of a simple list of filenames. The description should be user-editable and stored between sessions as a user configuration parameter.
7. GnuCash is free to decide where it's maps can be stored, although ~/.gnucash/xml/qsf would perhaps be intuitive.

Alternatives

Any QSF file can be used in xsltproc or Perl, PHP, Python etc. to transform one set of objects to another. Maps are just one option and are intended to be useful where XSL or other tools may be insufficient, e.g. due to a lack of conditionals, calculations, defaults or reference lookups.

It should be possible for QOF to receive a map on STDIN, providing a hook for pipes or scripting. Similarly, QOF will be able to accept a QSF file on STDIN.

Created by Neil Williams <linux@codehelp.co.uk> 18th June 2005

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