Ledger

Install the following packages:

sudo aptitude install build-essential
sudo aptitude install libtool
sudo aptitude install autoconf
sudo aptitude install automake
sudo aptitude install texinfo
sudo aptitude install python-dev
sudo aptitude install zlib1g-dev
sudo aptitude install libbz2-dev
sudo aptitude install stow
sudo aptitude install libgmp3-dev
sudo aptitude install bjam

sudo aptitude install libboost-dev
sudo aptitude install libboost-regex-dev
sudo aptitude install libboost-date-time-dev
sudo aptitude install libboost-filesystem-dev

sudo aptitude install gettext
sudo aptitude install cvs
sudo aptitude install libmpfr-dev
sudo aptitude install libpcre3-dev
sudo aptitude install libedit-dev
sudo aptitude install libcppunit-dev

Get Ledger from Git. Type:

git clone git://git.savannah.nongnu.org/ledger.git

cd ledger
rm -f config.log      # for git pull
git submodule init    # for utf8.h
git submodule update  # for utf8.h
chmod +x autogen.sh
./autogen.sh
./acprep
./configure

make check
make

make install
link <full-path-to-ledger>/ledger /usr/local/bin/ledger

ledger -f XXX/XXX.dat

The best way to update to the latest version is:

make distclean
./acprep update

This should do everything you need (create the configure script, call configure, and call make). It's an "all-in-one" solution to make it easy for those who are tracking Git to stay up to date.

Go to launchpad and get the latest files on the branch, not the tarball (which can be older).

Searching for the Perl modules to install with commands such as apt-cache search perl | grep csv (or grep yaml), we find that we have to install the following:

sudo aptitude install libtext-csv-perl
sudo aptitude install libyaml-perl
sudo aptitude install libsmart-comments-perl
sudo aptitude install libtemplate-perl

• Field separator must be the comma. Though, the following patch would accept semi-colons:

  my $CSV = Text::CSV->new({sep_char => ';'});
  

• Amounts have to be "numeric":
  • no thousand separator (dots removed)
  • decimal separator must be a dot (comma removed)
• Accents in the description are not supported… (otherwise, field count did not match).
• Virtual accounts (..) (..) lines should be removed
• Pay attention not having quotes in field labels, as in the following example:

  AmountField: 'Montant de l'operation'

CSV2Ledger.pl -i 979086845418.csv -o 979086845418.dat

I've had a problem of field counts with a DOS file. I could find this thanks to the help of Russell, and thanks to his smart comments in the code.

Smart_Comments="### ####" perl ~/src/CSV2Ledger-1.4/CSV2Ledger.pl -i telechargement-for-CSV2Ledger.csv

This produces verbose logs during the program execution. It is worth mentioning.

What CSV2Ledger is missing, for me, is:

• a default "Commodity" option (for example: EUR or USD) in the FileMatches.yaml file.
• a default payee, when there is none.
• a date format specification.
• a way to specify a destination account when amount is positive, and another when amount is negative. Wait. That does exist, but not tested yet.

• CSV2Ledger adds a trailing whitespace after each payee.
• Duplicate detection is great. Pay attention, though, than taking twice the same highway, and paying at the same toll could be detected as duplicate!