docs: tighten up actual/effective mnemonics, default commodity clarification

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Simon Michael 2011-08-30 14:14:39 +00:00
parent 5ead6d05b1
commit 69fb3ab9e2

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@ -298,20 +298,12 @@ flag.
About the terminology: we follow c++ ledger's usage, calling these the
*actual date* (on the left) and the *effective date* (on the right).
hledger doesn't actually care what these terms mean, but here are some
mnemonics to help keep our usage consistent and avoid confusion:
- "The movie ticket purchase took EFFECT on friday, but ACTUALLY appeared in my bank balance on monday."
- "The payment by cheque took EFFECT then, but ACTUALLY cleared weeks later."
- ACTUAL=EFFECTIVE. The actual date is by definition the one on the left,
the effective date is on the right. A before E.
mnemonics to keep our usage consistent and prevent confusion:
- ACTUAL=EFFECTIVE. The actual date is (by definition) the one on the left. A before E.
- BANKDATE=MYDATE. You can usually think "actual is bank's, effective is mine".
- LATER=EARLIER. The effective date is usually the chronologically earlier one.
- BANKDATE=MYDATE. You can usually think of effective date as "my date" and actual date as "bank's date".
If you record a transaction manually, you'll use the effective (your) date.
If you convert a transaction from bank data, it will have the actual (bank's) date.
- "The cheque took EFFECT then, but ACTUALLY cleared weeks later."
Example:
@ -330,8 +322,9 @@ Example:
### Default commodity
You can set a default commodity or currency with a D directive. The
commodity <!-- (and its symbol position and number format settings) --> will be
used for any subsequent amounts which have no commodity symbol.
commodity will be used for any subsequent amounts which have no commodity
symbol. This directive also influences the display format for amounts in
that commodity.
; default commodity: british pound, comma thousands separator, two decimal places
D £1,000.00