Check.txt

check

Check for various kinds of errors in your data.

Flags:
no command-specific flags

hledger provides a number of built-in correctness checks to help
validate your data and prevent errors. Some are run automatically, some
when you enable --strict mode; or you can run any of them on demand by
providing them as arguments to the check command. check produces no
output and a zero exit code if all is well. Eg:

hledger check                      # run basic checks
hledger check -s                   # run basic and strict checks
hledger check ordereddates payees  # run basic checks and two others

If you are an Emacs user, you can also configure flycheck-hledger to run
these checks, providing instant feedback as you edit the journal.

Here are the checks currently available. They are generally checked in
the order they are shown here, and only the first failure will be
reported.

Basic checks

These important checks are performed by default, by almost all hledger
commands:

- parseable - data files are in a supported format, with no syntax
  errors and no invalid include directives. This ensures that all files
  exist and are readable.

- autobalanced - all transactions are balanced, after automatically
  inferring missing amounts and conversion rates and then converting
  amounts to cost. This ensures that each transaction's journal entry is
  well formed.

- assertions - all balance assertions in the journal are passing.
  Balance assertions are a strong defense against errors, catching many
  problems. This check is on by default, but if it gets in your way, you
  can disable it temporarily with -I/--ignore-assertions, or as a
  default by adding that flag to your config file. (Then use -s/--strict
  or hledger check assertions when you want to enable it).

Strict checks

When the -s/--strict flag is used (AKA strict mode), all commands will
perform the following additional checks (and assertions, above). These
provide extra error-catching power to help you keep your data clean and
correct:

- balanced - like autobalanced, but implicit conversions between
  commodities are not allowed; all conversion transactions must use cost
  notation or equity postings. This prevents wrong conversions caused by
  typos.

- commodities - all commodity symbols used must be declared. This guards
  against mistyping or omitting commodity symbols.

- accounts - all account names used must be declared. This prevents the
  use of mis-spelled or outdated account names.

Other checks

These are not wanted by everyone, but can be run using the check
command:

- tags - all tags used must be declared. This prevents mis-spelled tag
  names. Note hledger fairly often finds unintended tags in comments.

- payees - all payees used in transactions must be declared. This will
  force you to declare any new payee name before using it. Most people
  will probably find this a bit too strict.

- ordereddates - within each file, transactions must be ordered by date.
  This is a simple and effective error catcher. It's not included in
  strict mode, but you can add it by running
  hledger check -s ordereddates. If enabled, this check is performed
  before balance assertions.

- recentassertions - all accounts with balance assertions must have one
  that's within the 7 days before their latest posting. This will
  encourage adding balance assertions for your active asset/liability
  accounts, which in turn should encourage you to reconcile regularly
  with those real world balances - another strong defense against
  errors. (hledger close --assert >>$LEDGER_FILE is a convenient way to
  add new balance assertions. Later these become quite redundant, and
  you might choose to remove them to reduce clutter.)

- uniqueleafnames - no two accounts may have the same last account name
  part (eg the checking in assets:bank:checking). This ensures each
  account can be matched by a unique short name, easier to remember and
  to type.

Custom checks

You can build your own custom checks with add-on command scripts. See
also Cookbook > Scripting. Here are some examples from hledger/bin/:

- hledger-check-tagfiles - all tag values containing / exist as file
  paths

- hledger-check-fancyassertions - more complex balance assertions are
  passing