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% hledger-web(1) % author % monthyear
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NAME
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hledger-web - web interface and API for hledger, a robust, friendly plain text accounting app.
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SYNOPSIS
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hledger-web [OPTS] [QUERY]
or
hledger web -- [OPTS] [QUERY]
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DESCRIPTION
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This manual is for hledger's web interface, version version. See also the hledger manual for common concepts and file formats.
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hledger-web is a simple web application for browsing and adding transactions. It provides a more user-friendly UI than the hledger CLI or hledger-ui TUI, showing more at once (accounts, the current account register, balance charts) and allowing history-aware data entry, interactive searching, and bookmarking.
hledger-web also lets you share a journal with multiple users, or even the public web. There is no access control, so if you need that you should put it behind a suitable web proxy. As a small protection against data loss when running an unprotected instance, it writes a numbered backup of the main journal file (only) on every edit.
Like hledger, it inputfileswithptr
hledger-web can be run in three modes:
-
Transient mode (the default): your default web browser will be opened to show the app if possible, and the app exits automatically after two minutes of inactivity (no requests received and no open browser windows viewing it).
-
With
--serve: the app runs without stopping, and without opening a browser. -
With
--serve-api: only the JSON API is served.
In all cases hledger-web runs as a foreground process, logging requests to stdout.
OPTIONS
hledger-web provides the following options:
Flags:
--serve --server serve and log requests, don't browse or auto-exit
--serve-api like --serve, but serve only the JSON web API,
not the web UI
--allow=view|add|edit set the user's access level for changing data
(default: `add`). It also accepts `sandstorm` for
use on that platform (reads permissions from the
`X-Sandstorm-Permissions` request header).
--cors=ORIGIN allow cross-origin requests from the specified
origin; setting ORIGIN to "*" allows requests from
any origin
--host=IPADDR listen on this IP address (default: 127.0.0.1)
--port=PORT listen on this TCP port (default: 5000)
--socket=SOCKET listen on the given unix socket instead of an IP
address and port (unix only; implies --serve)
--base-url=BASEURL set the base url (default: http://IPADDR:PORT)
--test run hledger-web's tests and exit. hspec test
runner args may follow a --, eg: hledger-web --test
-- --help
By default hledger-web listens only on IP address 127.0.0.1,
which be accessed only from the local machine.
To allow access from elsewhere, use --host to specify an externally accessible address configured on this machine,
The special address 0.0.0.0 causes it to listen on all of this machine's addresses.
Similarly, you can use --port to listen on a TCP port other than 5000.
This is useful if you want to run multiple hledger-web instances on a machine.
When --socket is used, hledger-web creates and communicates via a socket file instead of a TCP port.
This can be more secure, respects unix file permissions, and makes certain use cases easier,
such as running per-user instances behind an nginx reverse proxy. (Eg:
proxy_pass http://unix:/tmp/hledger/${remote_user}.socket;.)
You can use --base-url to change the protocol, hostname, port and path that appear in
hledger-web's hyperlinks. This is useful eg when integrating hledger-web within a larger website.
The default is http://HOST:PORT/ using the server's configured host address and TCP port
(or http://HOST if PORT is 80).
Note this affects url generation but not route parsing.
hledger-web also supports many of hledger's general options:
generaloptions
hledger-web shows accounts with zero balances by default (like hledger-ui, and unlike hledger).
Using the -E/--empty flag will reverse this behaviour.
If you see accounts which appear to have a zero balance, but cannot be hidden with -E,
it's because they have a mixed-cost balance, which looks like zero when costs are hidden.
(hledger-web does not show costs.)
Reporting options and/or query arguments can be used to set an initial query, which although not shown in the UI, will restrict the data shown (in addition to any search query entered in the UI).
If you use the bash shell, you can auto-complete flags by pressing TAB in the command line. If this is not working see Install > Shell completions.
PERMISSIONS
By default, hledger-web allows anyone who can reach it to view the journal and to add new transactions, but not to change existing data.
You can restrict who can reach it by
- setting the IP address it listens on (see
--hostabove). By default it listens on 127.0.0.1, accessible to all users on the local machine. - putting it behind an authenticating proxy, using eg apache or nginx
- custom firewall rules
You can restrict what the users who reach it can do, by
-
using the
--capabilities=CAP[,CAP..]flag when you start it, enabling one or more of the following capabilities. The default value isview,add:view- allows viewing the journal file and all included filesadd- allows adding new transactions to the main journal filemanage- allows editing, uploading or downloading the main or included files
-
using the
--capabilities-header=HTTPHEADERflag to specify a HTTP header from which it will read capabilities to enable. hledger-web on Sandstorm uses the X-Sandstorm-Permissions header to integrate with Sandstorm's permissions. This is disabled by default.
EDITING, UPLOADING, DOWNLOADING
If you enable the manage capability mentioned above,
you'll see a new "spanner" button to the right of the search form.
Clicking this will let you edit, upload, or download the journal
file or any files it includes.
Note, unlike any other hledger command, in this mode you (or any visitor) can alter or wipe the data files.
Normally whenever a file is changed in this way, hledger-web saves a numbered backup (assuming file permissions allow it, the disk is not full, etc.) hledger-web is not aware of version control systems, currently; if you use one, you'll have to arrange to commit the changes yourself (eg with a cron job or a file watcher like entr).
Changes which would leave the journal file(s) unparseable or non-valid (eg with failing balance assertions) are prevented. (Probably. This needs re-testing.)
RELOADING
hledger-web detects changes made to the files by other means (eg if you edit it directly, outside of hledger-web), and it will show the new data when you reload the page or navigate to a new page. If a change makes a file unparseable, hledger-web will display an error message until the file has been fixed.
(Note: if you are viewing files mounted from another machine, make sure that both machine clocks are roughly in step.)
JSON API
In addition to the web UI, hledger-web also serves a JSON API that can be
used to get data or add new transactions.
If you want the JSON API only, you can use the --serve-api flag. Eg:
$ hledger-web -f examples/sample.journal --serve-api
...
You can get JSON data from these routes:
/version
/accountnames
/transactions
/prices
/commodities
/accounts
/accounttransactions/ACCOUNTNAME
Eg, all account names in the journal (similar to the accounts command). (hledger-web's JSON does not include newlines, here we use python to prettify it):
$ curl -s http://127.0.0.1:5000/accountnames | python -m json.tool
[
"assets",
"assets:bank",
"assets:bank:checking",
"assets:bank:saving",
"assets:cash",
"expenses",
"expenses:food",
"expenses:supplies",
"income",
"income:gifts",
"income:salary",
"liabilities",
"liabilities:debts"
]
Or all transactions:
$ curl -s http://127.0.0.1:5000/transactions | python -m json.tool
[
{
"tcode": "",
"tcomment": "",
"tdate": "2008-01-01",
"tdate2": null,
"tdescription": "income",
"tindex": 1,
"tpostings": [
{
"paccount": "assets:bank:checking",
"pamount": [
{
"acommodity": "$",
"aismultiplier": false,
"aprice": null,
...
Most of the JSON corresponds to hledger's data types; for details of what the fields mean, see the Hledger.Data.Json haddock docs and click on the various data types, eg Transaction. And for a higher level understanding, see the journal docs. There is also a basic OpenAPI specification.
In some cases there is outer JSON corresponding to a "Report" type.
To understand that, go to the
Hledger.Web.Handler.MiscR haddock
and look at the source for the appropriate handler to see what it returns.
Eg for /accounttransactions it's
getAccounttransactionsR,
returning a "accountTransactionsReport ...".
Looking up the haddock for that
we can see that /accounttransactions returns an
AccountTransactionsReport,
which consists of a report title and a list of AccountTransactionsReportItem (etc).
You can add a new transaction to the journal with a PUT request to /add,
if hledger-web was started with the add capability (enabled by default).
The payload must be the full, exact JSON representation of a hledger transaction
(partial data won't do).
You can get sample JSON from hledger-web's /transactions or /accounttransactions,
or you can export it with hledger-lib, eg like so:
.../hledger$ stack ghci hledger-lib
>>> writeJsonFile "txn.json" (head $ jtxns samplejournal)
>>> :q
Here's how it looks as of hledger-1.17 (remember, this JSON corresponds to hledger's Transaction and related data types):
{
"tcomment": "",
"tpostings": [
{
"pbalanceassertion": null,
"pstatus": "Unmarked",
"pamount": [
{
"aprice": null,
"acommodity": "$",
"aquantity": {
"floatingPoint": 1,
"decimalPlaces": 10,
"decimalMantissa": 10000000000
},
"aismultiplier": false,
"astyle": {
"ascommodityside": "L",
"asdigitgroups": null,
"ascommodityspaced": false,
"asprecision": 2,
"asdecimalpoint": "."
}
}
],
"ptransaction_": "1",
"paccount": "assets:bank:checking",
"pdate": null,
"ptype": "RegularPosting",
"pcomment": "",
"pdate2": null,
"ptags": [],
"poriginal": null
},
{
"pbalanceassertion": null,
"pstatus": "Unmarked",
"pamount": [
{
"aprice": null,
"acommodity": "$",
"aquantity": {
"floatingPoint": -1,
"decimalPlaces": 10,
"decimalMantissa": -10000000000
},
"aismultiplier": false,
"astyle": {
"ascommodityside": "L",
"asdigitgroups": null,
"ascommodityspaced": false,
"asprecision": 2,
"asdecimalpoint": "."
}
}
],
"ptransaction_": "1",
"paccount": "income:salary",
"pdate": null,
"ptype": "RegularPosting",
"pcomment": "",
"pdate2": null,
"ptags": [],
"poriginal": null
}
],
"ttags": [],
"tsourcepos": {
"tag": "JournalSourcePos",
"contents": [
"",
[
1,
1
]
]
},
"tdate": "2008-01-01",
"tcode": "",
"tindex": 1,
"tprecedingcomment": "",
"tdate2": null,
"tdescription": "income",
"tstatus": "Unmarked"
}
And here's how to test adding it with curl. This should add a new entry to your journal:
$ curl http://127.0.0.1:5000/add -X PUT -H 'Content-Type: application/json' --data-binary @txn.json
DEBUG OUTPUT
Debug output
You can add --debug[=N] to the command line to log debug output.
N ranges from 1 (least output, the default) to 9 (maximum output).
Typically you would start with 1 and increase until you are seeing enough.
Debug output goes to stderr, interleaved with the requests logged on stdout.
To capture debug output in a log file instead, you can usually redirect stderr, eg:
hledger-web --debug=3 2>hledger-web.log.
ENVIRONMENT
LEDGER_FILE
The main journal file to use when not specified with -f/--file.
Default: $HOME/.hledger.journal.
BUGS
reportbugs
Some known issues:
Does not work well on small screens, or in text-mode browsers.