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Bug 797800 - [help screen items] clarification welcome
Summary: [help screen items] clarification welcome
Status: NEW
Alias: None
Product: GnuCash
Classification: Unclassified
Component: General (show other bugs)
Version: 3.904
Hardware: PC All
: Normal trivial
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: general
QA Contact: general
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2020-06-12 05:04 EDT by Jannick
Modified: 2020-06-20 17:35 EDT (History)
4 users (show)

See Also:


Attachments

Description Jannick 2020-06-12 05:04:29 EDT
gnucash-3.904-2020-06-11-git-3.904-20-g5766ae4bc+.setup.exe (Windows):

The following items of gnucash.exe's help screen (same for comparable help screen items of gnucash-cli.exe) are a bit confusing to me.  Clarification would be helpful to other users, too, I believe.

--logto: 
The default location ('/tmp/gnucash.trace' currently shown) should be platform-dependent, since for Windows the location is different than for Unix-like platforms.

--log:
What are admissible module names? (A list could be queried with, eg, an extra help screen ('--help-extra') or alike.)
Can the module name be empty (eg '--log "=info"', see --debug) to probably switch the log level to 'info' for all modules?

--debug:
Is the part of the equivalent command line flag '--log "=info"' really true? (See --log.)

--input-file:
Is 'gnucash --input-file abc.gnucash' equivalent to 'gnucash abc.gnucash' - or does the --input-file serve another purpose?  A clarification would be helpful. 

Thanks,
J.


=================================
Just for reference copied below gnucash.exe's help screen of the abovementioned version:


gnucash [options] [datafile] - GnuCash, accounting for personal and small business finance:

Common Options:
  -h [ --help ]           Show this help message
  -v [ --version ]        Show GnuCash version
  --debug                 Enable debugging mode: provide deep detail in the
                          logs.
                          This is equivalent to: --log "=info" --log "qof=info"
                          --log "gnc=info"
  --extra                 Enable extra/development/debugging features.
  --log arg               Log level overrides, of the form
                          "modulename={debug,info,warn,crit,error}"
                          Examples: "--log qof=debug" or "--log
                          gnc.backend.file.sx=info"
                          This can be invoked multiple times.
  --logto arg             File to log into; defaults to "/tmp/gnucash.trace";
                          can be "stderr" or "stdout".
  --gsettings-prefix arg  Set the prefix for gsettings schemas for gsettings
                          queries. This can be useful to have a different
                          settings tree while debugging.
  --input-file arg        [datafile]

Application Options:
  --nofile                Do not load the last file opened
  --help-gtk              Show help for gtk options

Deprecated Options:
  --add-price-quotes      Add price quotes to given GnuCash datafile.
                          Note this option has been deprecated and will be
                          removed in GnuCash 5.0.
                          Please use 'gnucash-cli --quotes get <datafile>'
                          instead.
  --namespace arg         Regular expression determining which namespace
                          commodities will be retrieved.
                          Note this option has been deprecated and will be
                          removed in GnuCash 5.0.
                          Please use 'gnucash-cli --quotes get --namespace
                          <namespace> <datafile>' instead.
Comment 1 Geert Janssens 2020-06-12 11:24:57 EDT
(In reply to Jannick from comment #0)
> gnucash-3.904-2020-06-11-git-3.904-20-g5766ae4bc+.setup.exe (Windows):
> 
> The following items of gnucash.exe's help screen (same for comparable help
> screen items of gnucash-cli.exe) are a bit confusing to me.  Clarification
> would be helpful to other users, too, I believe.
> 
> --input-file:
> Is 'gnucash --input-file abc.gnucash' equivalent to 'gnucash abc.gnucash' -
> or does the --input-file serve another purpose?  A clarification would be
> helpful.

While it is equivalent, this is really an implementation detail. The --input-file switch is not meant to be in the help output. I'll see to fixing it.
Comment 2 Geert Janssens 2020-06-12 11:44:29 EDT
... which I just did.

The other suggestions and questions need some more consideration.
Comment 3 John Ralls 2020-06-20 17:35:58 EDT
bin/gnucash --logto=stderr --log "=info"
...
* 14:33:28  WARN <gnc.bin> string [=info] not parseable
...

but
bin/gnucash --logto=stderr --log '""=info'

Works.

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