5.2 KiB
% hledger-web(1) % % October 2015
NAME
hledger-web - web interface for the hledger accounting tool
SYNOPSIS
hledger-web [OPTIONS]
hledger web -- [OPTIONS]
DESCRIPTION
hledger is a cross-platform program for tracking money, time, or any other commodity, using double-entry accounting and a simple, editable file format. hledger is inspired by and largely compatible with ledger(1).
hledger-web is hledger's web interface. It starts a simple web application for browsing and adding transactions, and optionally opens it in a web browser window if possible. It provides a more user-friendly UI than the hledger CLI or hledger-ui interface, 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 ledger 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.
The journal file is ~/.hledger.journal, $LEDGER_FILE, or another file specified with -f.
For more about the format, see hledger(1) or hledger_journal(5).
By default, hledger-web starts the web app in "transient mode" and also opens it in your default web browser if possible. In this mode the web app will keep running for as long as you have it open in a browser window, and will exit after two minutes of inactivity (no requests and no browser windows viewing it).
With --server, it starts the web app in non-transient mode and logs
requests to the console. Typically when running hledger web as part
of a website you'll want to use --base-url to set the
protocol/hostname/port/path to be used in hyperlinks. The
--file-url option allows static files to be served from a different
url, eg for better caching or cookie-less serving.
You can use --port to listen on a different TCP port, eg if you are
running multiple hledger-web instances. This need not be the same as
the PORT in the base url.
Note there is no built-in access control, so you will need to hide hledger-web behind an authenticating proxy (such as apache or nginx) if you want to restrict who can see and add entries to your journal.
With journal and timelog files (but not CSV files, currently) the web app detects changes and will show the new data on the next request. If a change makes the file unparseable, hledger-web will show an error until the file has been fixed.
OPTIONS
Note: if invoking hledger-web as a hledger subcommand, write -- before options as shown above.
--server- disable browser-opening and auto-exit-on-idle, and log all requests to stdout
--port=PORT- set the TCP port to listen on (default: 5000)
--base-url=URL- set the base url (default: http://localhost:PORT). You would change this when sharing over the network, or integrating within a larger website.
--file-url=URL- set the static files url (default: BASEURL/static). hledger-web normally serves static files itself, but if you wanted to serve them from another server for efficiency, you would set the url with this.
-h --help- show help
--version- show version information
hledger options:
The following common hledger options should also work:
-f FILE --file=FILE- use a different input file. For stdin, use -
--rules-file=RULESFILE- Conversion rules file to use when reading CSV (default: FILE.rules)
--alias=OLD=NEW- display accounts named OLD as NEW
--ignore-assertions- ignore any failing balance assertions in the journal
--debug=N- show debug output if N is 1-9 (default: 0)
-b --begin=DATE- include postings/txns on or after this date
-e --end=DATE- include postings/txns before this date
-p --period=PERIODEXP- set start date, end date, and/or reporting interval all at once (overrides the flags above)
--date2 --aux-date- use postings/txns' secondary dates instead
-C --cleared- include only cleared postings/txns
--pending- include only pending postings/txns
-U --uncleared- include only uncleared (and pending) postings/txns
-R --real- include only non-virtual postings
--depth=N- hide accounts/postings deeper than N
-E --empty- show empty/zero things which are normally omitted
-B --cost- show amounts in their cost price's commodity
ENVIRONMENT
LEDGER_FILE
sets the default journal file path. If not set, it is ~/.hledger.journal.
FILES
Reads data from a hledger journal file ($LEDGER_FILE or
~/.hledger.journal by default), or a CSV file plus associated CSV
rules file.
BUGS
The need to precede options with -- when invoked from hledger is awkward.
-f- doesn't work (hledger-web can't read from stdin).
Query arguments and some applicable hledger options probably aren't supported.
Does not work in text-mode browsers.
Does not work well on small screens.
The auto-exit feature was added to avoid leaving stray processes, eg on Windows. It is not well tested.
If you start two instances on the same port, the second one will appear to run normally, but you will be seeing pages served from the first one.