hledger/MANUAL.md

title
hledger user manual

User manual

About

hledger is a program for tracking money, time, or any other commodity, using a simple, editable file format and the powerful principles of double-entry accounting. It was inspired by ledger.

hledger's basic function is to read a plain text file describing (eg) financial transactions, and quickly generate useful reports via the command line. It can also help you record transactions, or (via add-ons) provide a local web interface for editing, or publish live financial data on the web.

You can use it to, eg:

• track spending and income
• track unpaid or due invoices
• track time and report by day/week/month/project
• get accurate numbers for client billing and tax filing

hledger aims to help both computer experts and regular folks gain clarity in their finances. For the moment, it may be a little more suited to techies. Please give it a try and let me know how we're doing.

hledger is copyright (c) 2007-2010 Simon Michael simon@joyful.com and contributors, and released as Free Software under GPL version 3 or later.

This is the manual for hledger 0.14.0.

Frequently asked questions

• How does hledger relate to John Wiegley's ledger project ?

  hledger was very much inspired by, and is partly a clone of, ledger (also called "c++ ledger" in these docs.) I was a happy ledger user and contributor for some time, and I still use it occasionally. I wrote hledger because I wanted to develop financial tools in the Haskell programming language and ecosystem, whose advantages I believe are compelling. I have also tried to make hledger a little more simple, usable, installable, and documented, and to provide alternate user interfaces and other enhancements to make it more widely useful.

  ledger has more advanced command-line power features (periodic transactions, budgets, capital gains tracking, value expressions, custom output formats, ...) and it remains faster and more memory efficient on large data files.

  The two projects (indeed the whole family of ledger-inspired projects) collaborate freely, and we share ledger's IRC channel (but have our own mail list.) We stay compatible with ledger wherever possible, intending that you can use both tools on the same data, each for its strengths. Here is more detail about compatibility.

Installing

hledger works on all major platforms (except microsoft windows, as of version 0.13; to be fixed). You can download and run current release binaries from the download page.

Or, you can build the current release from source using cabal-install. Ensure you have a working haskell environment, then:

$ cabal update
$ cabal install hledger

You can also build these optional add-ons providing extra features:

$ cabal install hledger-web
$ cabal install hledger-vty
$ cabal install hledger-chart

Or, you can build the latest development version:

$ cabal update
$ darcs get --lazy http://joyful.com/repos/hledger
$ cd hledger
$ make install

Installation notes:

• Whatever installation method you use, you may need to set a suitable locale if you're working with non-ascii journal data.
• When installing with cabal you may encounter dependency issues. These can often be worked around by: making sure to cabal update; using --constraint; and/or ghc-pkg unregister-ing obsolete package versions.
• hledger-chart: requires additional GTK-related libraries and possibly other things. On ubuntu, install the libghc6-gtk-dev package.
• hledger-vty: requires curses-related libraries (ubuntu package: libncurses5-dev). Not buildable on microsoft windows, except possibly via cygwin.
• hledger-web: building requires GHC 6.12 or greater.

If you have trouble, please see Troubleshooting and ask for Support.

Basic usage

Basic usage is:

$ hledger [OPTIONS] COMMAND [FILTER PATTERNS]

hledger first looks for data in a specially-formatted journal file. You can specify the file with the -f option or the LEDGER_FILE environment variable (LEDGER is also supported for backwards compatibility); otherwise hledger assumes it is a file named .hledger.journal in your home directory. If the journal file does not exist, it will be auto-created.

To get started, save this sample file as .hledger.journal in your home directory, or just run hledger add and enter some transactions. Now try commands like these:

$ hledger add                           # add some new transactions to the journal file
$ hledger balance                       # all accounts with aggregated balances
$ hledger bal --depth 1                 # only top-level accounts
$ hledger register                      # transaction register
$ hledger reg income                    # transactions to/from an income account
$ hledger reg checking                  # checking transactions
$ hledger reg desc:shop                 # transactions with shop in the description
$ hledger histogram                     # transactions per day, or other interval
$ hledger --help                        # show command-line help

Commands are described below. Note that most hledger commands are read-only, that is they can not modify your data. The exceptions are the add command which is append-only, and the (add-on) web command which can change everything.

Filter patterns are often used to select a subset of the journal data, eg to report only food-related transactions.

Options may appear anywhere on the command line. Here are the core hledger options, affecting most commands. Some of these are discussed more in other features:

hledger options:
  -f FILE  --file=FILE        use a different journal/timelog file; - means stdin
           --no-new-accounts  don't allow to create new accounts
  -b DATE  --begin=DATE       report on transactions on or after this date
  -e DATE  --end=DATE         report on transactions before this date
  -p EXPR  --period=EXPR      report on transactions during the specified period
                              and/or with the specified reporting interval
  -C       --cleared          report only on cleared transactions
  -U       --uncleared        report only on uncleared transactions
  -B       --cost, --basis    report cost of commodities
           --depth=N          hide accounts/transactions deeper than this
  -d EXPR  --display=EXPR     show only transactions matching EXPR (where
                              EXPR is 'dOP[DATE]' and OP is <, <=, =, >=, >)
           --effective        use transactions' effective dates, if any
  -E       --empty            show empty/zero things which are normally elided
  -R       --real             report only on real (non-virtual) transactions
           --flat             balance: show full account names, unindented
           --drop=N           balance: with --flat, elide first N account name components
           --no-total         balance: hide the final total
  -D       --daily            register, stats: report by day
  -W       --weekly           register, stats: report by week
  -M       --monthly          register, stats: report by month
  -Q       --quarterly        register, stats: report by quarter
  -Y       --yearly           register, stats: report by year
  -v       --verbose          show more verbose output
           --debug            show extra debug output; implies verbose
           --binary-filename  show the download filename for this hledger build
  -V       --version          show version information
  -h       --help             show command-line usage

File format

hledger reads data from a plain text file, called a journal because it represents a standard accounting general journal. It contains a number of transactions, each describing a transfer of money (or any commodity) between two or more named accounts, in a simple format readable by both hledger and humans.

You can use hledger without learning any more about this file; just use the add or web commands. Many users, though, edit the journal file directly with a text editor (perhaps using emacs' or vi's helper modes). This is a distinguishing feature of hledger and c++ ledger.

hledger's file format aims to be compatible with c++ ledger, so you can use both tools on your journal.

Here's an example:

; A sample journal file. This is a comment.

2008/01/01 income               ; <- transaction's first line starts in column 0, contains date and description
    assets:bank:checking  $1    ; <- posting lines start with whitespace, each contains an account name
    income:salary        $-1    ;    followed by at least two spaces and an amount

2008/06/01 gift
    assets:bank:checking  $1    ; <- at least two postings in a transaction
    income:gifts         $-1    ; <- their amounts must balance to 0

2008/06/02 save
    assets:bank:saving    $1
    assets:bank:checking        ; <- one amount may be omitted; here $-1 is inferred

2008/06/03 eat & shop           ; <- description can be anything
    expenses:food         $1
    expenses:supplies     $1    ; <- this transaction debits two expense accounts
    assets:cash                 ; <- $-2 inferred

2008/12/31 * pay off            ; <- an optional * after the date means "cleared" (or anything you want)
    liabilities:debts     $1
    assets:bank:checking

Transactions

Each transaction begins with a date in column 0, followed by an optional description, then two or more postings (of some amount to some account), each on their own line.

The posting amounts within a transaction must always balance, ie add up to 0. You can leave one amount blank and it will be inferred.

Account names

Account names typically have several parts separated by a full colon, from which hledger derives a hierarchical chart of accounts. They can be anything you like, but in finance there are traditionally five top-level accounts: assets, liabilities, income, expenses, and equity.

Account names may contain single spaces, eg: assets:accounts receivable.

Amounts

After the account name, separated by two or more spaces, there is usually an amount. This is a number, optionally with a currency symbol or commodity name on either the left or right. Commodity names which contain more than just letters should be enclosed in double quotes.

Negative amounts usually have the minus sign next to the number: $-1. Or it may go before the symbol: -$1.

The number may optionally have a decimal point, either a period (.) or a comma (,). hledger's reports will generally use the highest precision you have used in each commodity.

Numbers may also have digit group separators, eg thousands separators. hledger's reports will follow the digit groups you have used. The separator character is either comma or period - whichever one you did not use as a decimal point. If using digit group separators you should write at least one number with a decimal point, so hledger will know which is which. Eg: 1,000.00 or 1.000,00.

Simple dates

Within a journal file, transaction dates always follow a year/month/day format, although several different separator characters are accepted. Some examples:

2010/01/31, 2010/1/31, 2010-1-31, 2010.1.31

Writing the year is optional if you set a default year with a Y directive. This is a line containing Y and the year; it affects subsequent transactions, like so:

Y2009

12/15  ; equivalent to 2009/12/15
  ...

Y2010

1/31  ; equivalent to 2010/1/31
  ...

Actual & effective dates

Most of the time, a simple transaction date is all you need. However real-life transactions sometimes involve more than one date. For example, you buy a movie ticket on friday with a debit card, and the transaction is charged to your bank account on monday. Or you write a cheque to someone and they deposit it weeks later.

When you don't care about this, just pick one date for your journal transaction; either will do. This means your hledger reports can be slightly out of step with reality (eg your daily bank balance.)

When you need to model reality more accurately, you can write both dates, separated by an equals sign. By default, the first date is used in reports; to use the second one instead, run hledger with the --effective 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.

• 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.

Example:

; ACTUAL=EFFECTIVE
; The latter's year can be omitted, it will be taken from the former
2010/2/23=2/19 movie ticket
  expenses:cinema                   $10
  assets:checking

$ hledger register checking
2010/02/23 movie ticket         assets:checking                $-10         $-10

$ hledger register checking --effective
2010/02/19 movie ticket         assets:checking                $-10         $-10

Default commodity

You can set a default commodity or currency with a D directive. The commodity will be used for any subsequent amounts which have no commodity symbol.

; default commodity: british pound, comma thousands separator, two decimal places
D £1,000.00

2010/1/1
  a  2340   ; no commodity symbol, will use the above
  b

Prices

You can specify a commodity's unit price or exchange rate, in terms of another commodity. To set the price for a single posting's amount, write @ UNITPRICE after the amount, where UNITPRICE is the per-unit price in a different commodity:

2009/1/2
 assets:cash:foreign currency       €100 @ $1.35  ; one hundred euros priced at $1.35 each
 assets:cash

Or, you can write @@ TOTALPRICE, which is sometimes more convenient:

2009/1/2
 assets:cash:foreign currency       €100 @@ $135  ; one hundred euros priced at $135 for the lot (equivalent to the above)
 assets:cash

Or, you can set the price for this commodity as of a certain date, using a historical price directive (P) as shown:

; the exchange rate for euro is $1.35 on 2009/1/1 (and thereafter, until a newer price directive is found)
; four space-separated fields: P, date, commodity symbol, unit price in 2nd commodity
P 2009/1/1 € $1.35  

2009/1/2
 expenses:foreign currency       €100
 assets

Or, you can write a transaction in two commodities, without prices but with all amounts specified, and a conversion price will be inferred so as to balance the transaction:

2009/1/2
 expenses:foreign currency       €100
 assets                         $-135

The print command shows any prices in effect. So the first example above gives:

$ hledger print
2009/01/02
    expenses:foreign currency  €100 @ $1.35
    assets                     €-100 @ $1.35

To see amounts converted to their total cost, use the --cost/-B flag with any command:

$ hledger print --cost
2009/01/02 x
    expenses:foreign currency       $135.00
    assets                         $-135.00

In other words the --cost/-B flag converts amounts to their price's commodity. (It will not look up the price of a price.)

Note hledger handles prices differently from c++ ledger in this respect: we assume unit prices do not vary over time. This is good for simple reporting of foreign currency transactions, but not for tracking fluctuating-value investments or capital gains.

Including other files

You can pull in the content of additional journal files, by writing lines like this:

!include path/to/file.journal

The !include directive may only be used in journal files, and currently it may only include other journal files (eg, not timelog files.)

Default parent account

You can specify a parent account which will be prepended to all accounts within a section of the journal. Use the !account directive like so:

!account home

2010/1/1
    food    $10
    cash

!end

If !end is omitted, the effect lasts to the end of the file. The above is equivalent to:

2010/01/01
    home:food           $10
    home:cash          $-10

Included files are also affected, eg:

!account business
!include biz.journal
!end
!account personal
!include personal.journal
!end

Core commands

These commands are provided by the main hledger package and are always available. The most frequently used commands are print, register and balance.

add

The add command prompts interactively for new transactions, and appends them to the journal file. Each transaction is appended when you complete it by entering . (period) at the account prompt. Enter control-D or control-C when you are done.

The add command tries to be helpful, providing:

• Sensible defaults

• History awareness: if there are existing transactions approximately matching the description you enter, they will be displayed and the best match will provide defaults for the other fields. If you specify filter pattern(s) on the command line, only matching transactions will be considered as history.

• Readline-style input: during data entry, the usual editing keys should work.

• Auto-completion for account names: while entering account names, the tab key will auto-complete as far as possible, or list the available options.

• Default commodity awareness: if the journal specifies a default commodity directive, that will be applied to any bare numbers entered.

Examples:

$ hledger add
$ hledger -f home.journal add equity:bob

balance

The balance command displays accounts and their balances, indented to show the account hierarchy. Examples:

$ hledger balance
$ hledger balance food -p 'last month'

A final total is displayed, use --no-total to suppress this. Also, the --depth N option shows accounts only to the specified depth, useful for an overview:

$ for y in 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010; do echo; echo $y; hledger -f $y.journal balance ^expenses --depth 2; done

With --flat, a non-hierarchical list of full account names is displayed instead. This mode shows just the accounts actually contributing to the balance, making the arithmetic a little more obvious to non-hledger users. In this mode you can also use --drop N to elide the first few account name components. Note --depth doesn't work too well with --flat currently; it hides deeper accounts rather than aggregating them.

convert

The convert command reads a CSV file you have downloaded from your bank, and prints out the transactions in journal format, suitable for adding to your journal. It does not alter your journal directly.

This can be a lot quicker than entering every transaction by hand. (The downside is that you are less likely to notice if your bank makes an error!) Use it like this:

$ hledger convert FILE.csv >FILE.journal

where FILE.csv is your downloaded csv file. This will convert the csv data using conversion rules defined in FILE.rules (auto-creating this file if needed), and save the output into a temporary journal file. Then you should review FILE.journal for problems; update the rules and convert again if needed; and finally copy/paste transactions which are new into your main journal.

convert requires a *.rules file containing data definitions and rules for assigning destination accounts to transactions; it will be auto-created if missing. Typically you will have one csv file and one rules file per bank account.

If you have many CSV files for each account, have many accounts in the same bank or for any other reason want to re-use the rules file you can state it explicitly with the --rules argument.

Here's an example rules file for converting csv data from a Wells Fargo checking account:

base-account assets:bank:checking
date-field 0
description-field 4
amount-field 1
currency $

; account-assigning rules:

SPECTRUM
expenses:health:gym

ITUNES
BLKBSTR=BLOCKBUSTER
expenses:entertainment

(TO|FROM) SAVINGS
assets:bank:savings

This says:

• the account corresponding to this csv file is assets🏦checking
• the first csv field is the date, the second is the amount, the fifth is the description
• prepend a dollar sign to the amount field
• if description contains SPECTRUM (case-insensitive), the transaction is a gym expense
• if description contains ITUNES or BLKBSTR, the transaction is an entertainment expense; also rewrite BLKBSTR as BLOCKBUSTER
• if description contains TO SAVINGS or FROM SAVINGS, the transaction is a savings transfer

Notes:

• Lines beginning with ; or # are ignored (but avoid using inside an account rule)

• Definitions must come first, one per line, all in one paragraph. Each is a name and a value separated by whitespace. Supported names are: base-account, date-field, effective-date-field, date-format, status-field, code-field, description-field, amount-field, currency-field, account-field, currency. All are optional and will use defaults if not specified.

• If your file contains data corresponding to several accounts (for example - bulk export from other accounting software), you can use account-field to override value of base-account. When account-field value is empty, base-account will be used.

• The date-format field contains the expected format for the input dates: this is the same as that accepted by the Haskell formatTime function. Note that '%d' and '%m' specifiers require day and month numbers to have leading zeroes, otherwise your format might fail to work.

• The remainder of the file is account-assigning rules. Each is a paragraph consisting of one or more description-matching patterns (case-insensitive regular expressions), one per line, followed by the account name to use when the transaction's description matches any of these patterns.

• A match pattern may be followed by a replacement pattern, separated by =, which rewrites the matched part of the description. Use this if you want to clean up messy bank data. To rewrite the entire description, use a match pattern like .*PAT.*=REPL. Within a replacement pattern, you can refer to the matched text with \0 and any regex groups with \1, \2 in the usual way.

• Amount may contain the total or per-unit price. For example, lets assume that your base account "bank-current" is in GBP, and your CSV specifies amount of "10 USD @@ 15 GBP", and account-assigning rules selected account "travel-expenses" for this transaction. As a result, "travel-expenses" would be credited by "10 USD @@ 15 GBP", and "bank-current" would be debited by "-15 GBP". This way you could track the expenses in the currencies there were made, while keeping your base account in single currency

The convert command also supports converting standard input if you're streaming a CSV file from the web or another tool. Use - as the input file and hledger will read from stdin:

$ cat foo.csv | fixup | hledger convert --rules foo.rules -

Note that a rules file is required when streaming.

histogram

The histogram command displays a quick bar chart showing transaction counts by day, week, month or other reporting interval.

Examples:

$ hledger histogram -p weekly dining

print

The print command displays full transactions from the journal file, tidily formatted and showing all amounts explicitly. The output of print is always a valid hledger journal.

hledger's print command also shows all unit prices in effect, or (with -B/--cost) shows cost amounts.

Examples:

$ hledger print
$ hledger print employees:bob | hledger -f- register expenses

register

The register command displays postings, one per line, and their running total. With no filter patterns, this is not all that different from print:

$ hledger register

More typically, use it to see a specific account's activity:

$ hledger register assets:bank:checking

The --depth option limits the amount of sub-account detail displayed:

$ hledger register assets:bank:checking --depth 2

With a reporting interval it shows aggregated summary postings within each interval:

$ hledger register --monthly rent
$ hledger register --monthly -E food --depth 4

stats

The stats command displays quick summary information for the whole journal, or by period.

Examples:

$ hledger stats
$ hledger stats -p 'monthly in 2009'

test

This command runs hledger's internal self-tests and displays a quick report. The -v option shows more detail, and a pattern can be provided to filter tests by name. It's mainly used in development, but it's also nice to be able to test for smoke at any time.

Examples:

$ hledger test
$ hledger test -v balance

Add-on commands

The following extra commands will be available if they have been installed. Add-ons may differ from hledger core in their level of support and maturity and may not be available on all platforms; if available, they are provided on the download page. Note currently you must invoke add-on commands like, eg: $ hledger-web ..., not $ hledger web .... The hledger-NAME executables support the usual hledger options, plus any specific options of their own.

chart

The chart command saves an image file, by default "hledger.png", showing a basic pie chart of your top account balances. Note that positive and negative balances will not be displayed together in the same chart; any balances not matching the sign of the first one will be ignored.

chart-specific options:

--output

You can specify a different output file name with -o/--output. The data currently will always be in PNG format.

--size

You can adjust the image resolution with --size=WIDTHxHEIGHT (in pixels).

--items

Set the number of accounts to show with --items=N (default is 10).

To show only accounts above a certain depth, use the --depth option; otherwise the chart can include accounts of any depth. When a parent and child account both appear in a chart, the parent's balance will be exclusive of the child's.

Examples:

$ hledger-chart assets --depth 2
$ hledger-chart liabilities --depth 2
$ hledger-chart ^expenses -o balance.png --size 1000x600 --items 20
$ for m in 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12; do hledger-chart -p 2009/$m ^expenses --depth 2 -o expenses-2009$m.png --size 400x300; done

vty

The vty command starts a simple curses-style (full-screen, text) user interface, which allows interactive navigation of the print/register/balance reports. This lets you browse around and explore your numbers quickly with less typing.

vty-specific options:

--debug-vty

--debug-vty  run with no terminal output, showing console

Examples:

$ hledger-vty
$ hledger-vty -BE food

web

The web command starts a web server providing a web-based user interface, and if possible opens a web browser to view it. The web UI combines the features of the print, register, balance and add commands, and adds a general edit command.

There are some web-specific options:

--port

--port=N           serve on tcp port N (default 5000)

The server listens on port 5000 by default; use --port to change that.

--base-url

--base-url=URL     use this base url (default http://localhost:PORT)

If you want to visit the web UI from other machines, you'll need to use this option to fix the hyperlinks. Just give your machine's host name or ip address instead of localhost. This option is also lets you conform to a custom url scheme when running hledger-web behind a reverse proxy as part of a larger site. Note that the PORT in the base url need not be the same as the --port argument.

data safety

Warning: the web UI's edit form can alter your existing journal data (it is the only hledger feature that can do so.) Any visitor to the web UI can edit or overwrite the journal file (and any included files); hledger provides no access control. A numbered backup of the file is saved on each edit, normally - ie if file permissions allow, disk is not full, etc.

web support files

hledger-web requires certain support files (images, stylesheets, javascript etc.) to be present in a particular location when it runs. Specifically, they need to be in a web directory, under the .hledger directory, under the current directory when you start hledger-web. To make this easy, hledger-web will auto-create these files in ./.hledger/web/ if they do not exist. Currently, after doing this it will exit, with a notice explaining what happened, and you'll have to run it a second time.

The above is a compromise to satisfy certain technical constraints, but there is an advantage: you can easily customise the web UI's appearance (even while it is running) by editing these files. This is useful eg for integrating with an existing site. You can also run with different customisations by starting hledger-web from a different current directory. Note this means you should be aware of where you start hledger-web from, otherwise it may just create a new copy of the support files and ignore your stylings. To keep things simple you might choose to always run it from the same place, eg your home directory.

Also note that when you upgrade hledger-web in future, these files will need to be upgraded too, probably by removing them and letting them be recreated. So if you do customise them, remember what you changed; a version control system such as darcs will work well here.

detecting changes

As noted, changes to the support files will take effect immediately, without a restart. This applies to the journal data too; you can directly edit the journal file(s) (or, eg, commit a change within a version control system) while the web UI is running, and the changes will be visible on the next page reload.

malformed edits

The journal file must remain in good hledger format so that hledger can parse it. The web add and edit forms ensure this by not allowing edits which would introduce parse errors. If a direct edit makes the journal file unparseable, the web UI will show the error instead of data, until the file has been fixed.

Examples:

$ hledger-web
$ hledger-web -E -B --depth 2 -f some.journal
$ hledger-web --port 5010 --base-url http://some.vhost.com --debug

Other features

Here are some additional hledger features and concepts that affect most commands.

Filter patterns

Most commands accept one or more filter pattern arguments after the command name, to select a subset of transactions or postings. There are two kinds of pattern:

• an account pattern, which is a regular expression. This is matched against postings' accounts. Optionally, it may be prefixed with not: in which case the match is negated.

• a description pattern, like the above but prefixed with desc:. This is matched against transactions' descriptions. Note, when negating a desc: pattern, not: goes last, eg: desc:not:someregexp.

When you specify multiple filter patterns, hledger generally selects the transactions or postings which match (or negatively match)

any of the account patterns AND any of the description patterns

The print command selects transactions which

match any of the description patterns AND have any postings matching any of the positive account patterns AND have no postings matching any of the negative account patterns

Smart dates

Unlike the journal file, hledger's user interface accepts more flexible "smart dates", for example in the -b and -e options, period expressions, display expressions, the add command and the web add form. Smart dates allow some natural english words, will assume 1 where less-significant date parts are unspecified, and can be relative to today's date. Examples:

• 2009/1/1, 2009/01/01, 2009-1-1, 2009.1.1 (simple dates)
• 2009/1, 2009 (these also mean january 1, 2009)
• 1/1, january, jan, this year (relative dates, meaning january 1 of this year)
• next year (january 1, next year)
• this month (the 1st of the current month)
• this week (the most recent monday)
• last week (the monday of the week before this one)
• today, yesterday, tomorrow

Spaces in smart dates are optional, so eg: -b lastmonth is valid.

Period expressions

hledger supports flexible "period expressions" with the -p/--period option to select transactions within a period of time (eg in 2009) and/or with a reporting interval (eg weekly). hledger period expressions are similar but not identical to c++ ledger's.

Here is a basic period expression specifying the first quarter of 2009. Note the start date is always included and the end date is always excluded:

-p "from 2009/1/1 to 2009/4/1"

Keywords like "from" and "to" are optional, and so are the spaces. Just don't run two dates together:

-p2009/1/1to2009/4/1
-p"2009/1/1 2009/4/1"

Dates are smart dates, so if the current year is 2009, the above can also be written as:

-p "1/1 to 4/1"
-p "january to apr"
-p "this year to 4/1"

If you specify only one date, the missing start or end date will be the earliest or latest transaction in your journal:

-p "from 2009/1/1"  (everything after january 1, 2009)
-p "from 2009/1"    (the same)
-p "from 2009"      (the same)
-p "to 2009"        (everything before january 1, 2009)

A single date with no "from" or "to" defines both the start and end date like so:

-p "2009"           (the year 2009;    equivalent to "2009/1/1 to 2010/1/1")
-p "2009/1"         (the month of jan; equivalent to "2009/1/1 to 2009/2/1")
-p "2009/1/1"       (just that day;    equivalent to "2009/1/1 to 2009/1/2")

The -b/--begin and -e/--end options may be used as a shorthand for -p 'from ...' and -p 'to ...' respectively.

Note, however: a -p/--period option in the command line will cause any -b/-e/-D/-W/-M/-Q/-Y flags to be ignored.

Reporting interval

Period expressions can also begin with (or be) a reporting interval, which affects commands like register and histogram. The reporting interval can be daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly, or one of the every ... expressions below, optionally followed by in. Examples:

-p "weekly from 2009/1/1 to 2009/4/1"
-p "monthly in 2008"
-p "bimonthly from 2008"
-p "quarterly"
-p "every 2 weeks"
-p "every 5 days from 1/3"
-p "every 15th day of month"
-p "every 4th day of week"

A reporting interval may also be specified with the -D/--daily, -W/--weekly, -M/--monthly, -Q/--quarterly, and -Y/--yearly options. But as noted above, a --period option will override these.

Display expressions

Unlike a period expression, which selects the transactions to be used for calculation, a display expression (specified with -d/--display) selects which transactions will be displayed. This useful, say, if you want to see your checking register just for this month, but with an accurate running balance based on all transactions. Eg:

$ hledger register checking --display "d>=[1]"

meaning "make a register report of all checking transactions, but display only the ones with date on or after the 1st of this month." This the only kind of display expression we currently support, ie transactions before or after a given (smart) date.

Depth limiting

With the --depth N option, reports will show only the uppermost accounts in the account tree, down to level N. See the balance, register and chart examples.

Timelog reporting

hledger can also read time log files in timeclock.el's format, containing clock-in and clock-out entries like so:

i 2009/03/31 22:21:45 projects:A
o 2009/04/01 02:00:34

hledger treats the clock-in description ("projects:A") as an account name, and creates a virtual transaction (or several - one per day) with the appropriate amount of hours. From the time log above, hledger print gives:

2009/03/31 * 22:21-23:59
    (projects:A)          1.6h

2009/04/01 * 00:00-02:00
    (projects:A)          2.0h

Here is a sample.timelog to download and some queries to try:

hledger -f sample.timelog balance                               # current time balances
hledger -f sample.timelog register -p 2009/3                    # sessions in march 2009
hledger -f sample.timelog register -p weekly --depth 1 --empty  # time summary by week

To record time logs, ie to clock in and clock out, you could:

• use emacs and timeclock-x.el and perhaps ledgerutils.el

• at the command line, use these bash aliases:

   alias ti="echo i `date '+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S'` \$* >>$TIMELOG"
   alias to="echo o `date '+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S'` >>$TIMELOG"
  

• or the old "ti" and "to" scripts in the c++ ledger 2.x repository. These rely on a "timeclock" executable which I think is just the ledger 2 executable renamed.

Compatibility with c++ ledger

hledger mimics a subset of ledger 3.x, and adds some features of its own (the add, web, vty, chart commands). We currently support:

• regular journal transactions
• journal format (we should be able to parse most ledger journals)
• timelog format
• multiple commodities
• prices and price history (with non-changing prices)
• virtual postings
• filtering by account and description
• print, register & balance commands
• period expressions quite similar to ledger's
• display expressions containing just a simple date predicate

We do not support:

• periodic and modifier transactions
• fluctuating prices
• display formats
• budget reports

And we add some features:

• add
• chart
• vty
• web

Implementation

Unlike c++ ledger, hledger is written in the Haskell programming language. Haskell enables a coding style known as pure lazy functional programming, which holds the promise of more robust and maintainable software built with fewer lines of code. Haskell also provides a more abstracted, portable platform which can make deployment and installation easier in some cases. Haskell also brings some new challenges such as managing memory growth.

File format compatibility

hledger's file format is mostly identical with that of c++ ledger, with some features being accepted but ignored (eg, modifier entries and periodic entries). There are subtle differences in parser behaviour, eg comments may be permissible in different places. hledger does not allow separate dates for individual postings, or AMT1=AMT2 or { } syntax.

Generally, it's easy to keep a journal file that works with both hledger and c++ledger if you avoid these. Occasionally you'll need to make small adjustments to restore compatibility for one or the other.

(See also usage issues)

Features not supported

c++ ledger features not currently supported include: modifier and periodic entries, and the following c++ ledger options and commands:

Basic options:
-o, --output FILE      write output to FILE
-i, --init-file FILE   initialize ledger using FILE (default: ~/.ledgerrc)
-a, --account NAME     use NAME for the default account (useful with QIF)

Report filtering:
-c, --current          show only current and past entries (not future)
    --period-sort EXPR sort each report period's entries by EXPR
-L, --actual           consider only actual (non-automated) transactions
-r, --related          calculate report using related transactions
    --budget           generate budget entries based on periodic entries
    --add-budget       show all transactions plus the budget
    --unbudgeted       show only unbudgeted transactions
    --forecast EXPR    generate forecast entries while EXPR is true
-l, --limit EXPR       calculate only transactions matching EXPR
-t, --amount EXPR      use EXPR to calculate the displayed amount
-T, --total EXPR       use EXPR to calculate the displayed total

Output customization:
-n, --collapse         Only show totals in the top-most accounts.
-s, --subtotal         other: show subtotals
-P, --by-payee         show summarized totals by payee
-x, --comm-as-payee    set commodity name as the payee, for reporting
    --dow              show a days-of-the-week report
-S, --sort EXPR        sort report according to the value expression EXPR
-w, --wide             for the default register report, use 132 columns
    --head COUNT       show only the first COUNT entries (negative inverts)
    --tail COUNT       show only the last COUNT entries (negative inverts)
    --pager PAGER      send all output through the given PAGER program
-A, --average          report average transaction amount
-D, --deviation        report deviation from the average
-%, --percentage       report balance totals as a percentile of the parent
    --totals           in the "xml" report, include running total
-j, --amount-data      print only raw amount data (useful for scripting)
-J, --total-data       print only raw total data
-y, --date-format STR  use STR as the date format (default: %Y/%m/%d)
-F, --format STR       use STR as the format; for each report type, use:
    --balance-format      --register-format       --print-format
    --plot-amount-format  --plot-total-format     --equity-format
    --prices-format       --wide-register-format

Commodity reporting:
    --price-db FILE    sets the price database to FILE (def: ~/.pricedb)
-L, --price-exp MINS   download quotes only if newer than MINS (def: 1440)
-Q, --download         download price information when needed
-O, --quantity         report commodity totals (this is the default)
-V, --market           report last known market value
-g, --performance      report gain/loss for each displayed transaction
-G, --gain             report net gain/loss

Commands:
xml      [REGEXP]...   print matching entries in XML format
equity   [REGEXP]...   output equity entries for matching accounts
prices   [REGEXP]...   display price history for matching commodities
entry DATE PAYEE AMT   output a derived entry, based on the arguments

Other differences

• hledger recognises description and negative patterns by "desc:" and "not:" prefixes, unlike ledger 3's free-form parser

• hledger doesn't require a space before command-line option values, eg either -f- or -f - is fine

• hledger's weekly reporting intervals always start on mondays

• hledger shows start and end dates of the intervals requested, not just the span containing data

• hledger always shows timelog balances in hours

• hledger splits multi-day timelog sessions at midnight

• hledger doesn't track the value of commodities with varying price; prices are fixed as of the transaction date

• hledger's output follows the decimal point character, digit grouping, and digit group separator character used in the journal.

• hledger print shows amounts for all postings, and shows unit prices for amounts which have them. (This currently means that it does not print multi-commodity transactions in valid journal format.)

• hledger's default commodity directive (D) sets the commodity for subsequent commodityless amounts, and contributes to that commodity's display settings. ledger uses D only for commodity display settings and for the entry command.

Troubleshooting

Installation issues

cabal builds a lot of fast-evolving software, and it's not always smooth sailing. Here are some known issues and things to try:

• Ask for help on #hledger or #haskell. Eg: join the #hledger channel with your IRC client and type: "sm: I did ... and ... happened", then leave that window open until you get helped.

• Did you cabal update ? If you didn't already, cabal update and try again.

• Do you have a new enough version of GHC ? hledger supports GHC 6.10 and 6.12. Building with the -fweb flag requires 6.12 or greater.

• An error while building non-hledger packages. Resolve these problem packages one at a time. Eg, cabal install pkg1. Look for the cause of the failure near the end of the output. If it's not apparent, try again with -v2 or -v3 for more verbose output.

• ExitFailure 11 from cabal Probably http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/hackage/ticket/777

• Could not run happy. A package (eg haskell-src-exts) needs to run the happy executable. If not using the haskell platform, install the appropriate platform package which provides it (eg apt-get install happy).

• Undefined symbols: ... _iconv ... If cabal gives this error:

    Linking dist/build/hledger/hledger ...
    Undefined symbols:
      "_iconv_close", referenced from:
          _hs_iconv_close in libHSbase-4.2.0.2.a(iconv.o)
      "_iconv", referenced from:
          _hs_iconv in libHSbase-4.2.0.2.a(iconv.o)
      "_iconv_open", referenced from:
          _hs_iconv_open in libHSbase-4.2.0.2.a(iconv.o)
  

  you are probably on a mac with macports libraries installed, causing this issue. To work around temporarily, add this --extra-lib-dirs flag:

    $ cabal install hledger --extra-lib-dirs=/usr/lib
  

  or permanently, add this to ~/.cabal/config:

    extra-lib-dirs: /usr/lib
  

• A ghc: panic! (the 'impossible' happened) might be this issue

• This package indirectly depends on multiple versions of the same package. You may have previously installed some of hledger's dependencies depending on different versions of (eg) parsec. Then cabal install hledger gives an error like this:

    Warning: This package indirectly depends on multiple versions of the same
    package. This is highly likely to cause a compile failure.
    package yesod-0.5.0.3 requires parsec-2.1.0.1
    package csv-0.1.1 requires parsec-3.1.0
    ...
  

  The above example could be resolved by, eg:

    $ cabal install yesod --reinstall --constraint 'parsec == 3.1.0"
  

• Another error while building a hledger package. The current hledger release might have an error in its code or package dependencies. You could try installing the latest development version.

• Do you have a new enough version of cabal-install ? Recent versions tend to be better at resolving dependencies. The error setup: failed to parse output of 'ghc-pkg dump' is another symptom of this. To update, do:

    $ cabal update
    $ cabal install cabal-install
    $ cabal clean
  

  then try installing hledger again.

• cabal fails to resolve dependencies. It's possible for cabal to get confused, eg if you have installed/updated many cabal package versions or GHC itself. You can sometimes work around this by using cabal install's --constraint option. Another (drastic) way is to purge all unnecessary package versions by removing (or renaming) ~/.ghc, then trying cabal install again.

Usage issues

Here are some issues you might encounter when you run hledger:

• non-ascii data gives "Illegal byte sequence" or "Invalid or incomplete multibyte or wide character" errors

  hledger and other executables produced by GHC will give this error if asked to read a non-ascii file when a proper system locale is not configured. Eg, it's common for journal files to be UTF-8-encoded, in which case the system must have a (installed) UTF-8-aware locale configured. You can also configure it temporarily by setting the LANG environment variable on the command line. Here's an example, using ubuntu:

    $ file my.journal
    my.journal: UTF-8 Unicode text
    $ locale -a
    C
    en_US.utf8
    POSIX
    $ LANG=en_US.utf8 hledger -f my.journal print
  

  If we prefer, say, fr_FR.utf8, we'd better make sure it's installed:

    $ apt-get install language-pack-fr
    $ locale -a
    C
    en_US.utf8
    fr_BE.utf8
    fr_CA.utf8
    fr_CH.utf8
    fr_FR.utf8
    fr_LU.utf8
    POSIX
    $ LANG=fr_FR.utf8 hledger -f my.journal print
  

  Also note that on ubuntu variant spellings of "utf8", like "fr_FR.UTF8", are allowed, while on mac osx it must be exactly "fr_FR.UTF-8".

  Here's one way to set LANG permanently:

    $ echo "export LANG=en_US.UTF-8" >>~/.bash_profile
    $ bash --login
  

• hledger fails to parse some valid ledger files

  See file format compatibility.

Examples and recipes

• Here's a bash function that will run hledger chart and display the image in your (graphical) emacs:

  function chart () {
    hledger chart $* && emacsclient -n hledger.png
  }
  

  Example:

  $ chart food --depth 2 -p jan
  

Other resources

• The rest of the hledger.org site.

• The c++ ledger site. Also the c++ ledger 2.x manual is slightly outdated but informative.

• Why you need accounting