Print.txt

Show full journal entries, representing transactions.

Flags:
-x --explicit show all amounts explicitly
--invert display all amounts with reversed sign
--locations add tags showing file paths and line numbers
-m --match=DESC fuzzy search for one recent transaction with
description closest to DESC
--new show only newer-dated transactions added in each
file since last run
--round=TYPE how much rounding or padding should be done when
displaying amounts ?
none - show original decimal digits,
as in journal (default)
soft - just add or remove decimal zeros
to match precision
hard - round posting amounts to precision
(can unbalance transactions)
all - also round cost amounts to precision
(can unbalance transactions)
--base-url=URLPREFIX in html output, generate links to hledger-web,
with this prefix. (Usually the base url shown by
hledger-web; can also be relative.)
-O --output-format=FMT select the output format. Supported formats:
txt, beancount, csv, tsv, html, fods, json, sql.
-o --output-file=FILE write output to FILE. A file extension matching
one of the above formats selects that format.

The print command displays full journal entries (transactions) from the
journal file, sorted by date (or with --date2, by secondary date).

Directives and inter-transaction comments are not shown, currently. This
means the print command is somewhat lossy, and if you are using it to
reformat/regenerate your journal you should take care to also copy over
the directives and inter-transaction comments.

Eg:

$ hledger print -f examples/sample.journal date:200806
2008/06/01 gift
assets:bank:checking $1
income:gifts $-1

2008/06/02 save
assets:bank:saving $1
assets:bank:checking $-1

2008/06/03 * eat & shop
expenses:food $1
expenses:supplies $1
assets:cash $-2

print amount explicitness

Normally, whether posting amounts are implicit or explicit is preserved.
For example, when an amount is omitted in the journal, it will not
appear in the output. Similarly, if a conversion cost is implied but not
written, it will not appear in the output.

You can use the -x/--explicit flag to force explicit display of all
amounts and costs. This can be useful for troubleshooting or for making
your journal more readable and robust against data entry errors. -x is
also implied by using any of -B,-V,-X,--value.

The -x/--explicit flag will cause any postings with a multi-commodity
amount (which can arise when a multi-commodity transaction has an
implicit amount) to be split into multiple single-commodity postings,
keeping the output parseable.

print alignment

Amounts are shown right-aligned within each transaction (but not aligned
across all transactions; you can achieve that with ledger-mode in
Emacs).

print amount style

Amounts will be displayed mostly in their commodity's display style,
with standardised symbol placement, decimal mark, and digit group marks.
This does not apply to their decimal digits; print normally shows the
same decimal digits that are recorded in each journal entry.

You can override the decimal precisions with print's special --round
option (since 1.32). --round tries to show amounts with their
commodities' standard decimal precisions, increasingly strongly:

- --round=none show amounts with original precisions (default)
- --round=soft add/remove decimal zeros in amounts (except costs)
- --round=hard round amounts (except costs), possibly hiding significant
digits
- --round=all round all amounts and costs

soft is good for non-lossy cleanup, displaying more consistent decimals
where possible, without making entries unbalanced.

hard or all can be good for stronger cleanup, when decimal rounding is
wanted. Note rounding can produce unbalanced journal entries, perhaps
requiring manual fixup.

print parseability

Normally, print's output is a valid hledger journal, which you can
"pipe" to a second hledger command for further processing. This is
sometimes convenient for achieving certain kinds of query (though less
needed now that queries have become more powerful):

# Show running total of food expenses paid from cash.
# -f- reads from stdin. -I/--ignore-assertions is sometimes needed.
$ hledger print assets:cash | hledger -f- -I reg expenses:food

But here are some things which can cause print's output to become
unparseable:

- --round (see above) can disrupt transaction balancing.
- Account aliases or pivoting can disrupt account names, balance
assertions, or balance assignments.
- Value reporting also can disrupt balance assertions or balance
assignments.
- Auto postings can generate too many amountless postings.
- --infer-costs or --infer-equity can generate too-complex redundant
costs.
- Because print always shows transactions in date order, balance
assertions involving non-date-ordered transactions (and same-day
postings) could be disrupted.

print, other features

With -B/--cost, amounts with costs are shown converted to cost.

With --invert, posting amounts are shown with their sign flipped. It
could be useful if you have accidentally recorded some transactions with
the wrong signs.

With --new, print shows only transactions it has not seen on a previous
run. This uses the same deduplication system as the import command. (See
import's docs for details.)

With -m DESC/--match=DESC, print shows one recent transaction whose
description is most similar to DESC. DESC should contain at least two
characters. If there is no similar-enough match, no transaction will be
shown and the program exit code will be non-zero.

With --locations, print adds the source file and line number to every
transaction, as a tag.

print output format

This command also supports the output destination and output format
options The output formats supported are txt, beancount (Added in 1.32),
csv, tsv (Added in 1.32), json and sql.

The beancount format tries to produce Beancount-compatible output, as
follows:

- Transaction and postings with unmarked status are converted to cleared
(*) status.
- Transactions' payee and note are backslash-escaped and
double-quote-escaped and wrapped in double quotes.
- Transaction tags are copied to Beancount #tag format.
- Commodity symbols are converted to upper case, and a small number of
currency symbols like $ are converted to the corresponding currency
names.
- Account name parts are capitalised and unsupported characters are
replaced with -. If an account name part does not begin with a letter,
or if the first part is not Assets, Liabilities, Equity, Income, or
Expenses, an error is raised. (Use --alias options to bring your
accounts into compliance.)
- An open directive is generated for each account used, on the earliest
transaction date.

Some limitations:

- Balance assertions are removed.
- Balance assignments become missing amounts.
- Virtual and balanced virtual postings become regular postings.
- Directives are not converted.

Here's an example of print's CSV output:

$ hledger print -Ocsv
"txnidx","date","date2","status","code","description","comment","account","amount","commodity","credit","debit","posting-status","posting-comment"
"1","2008/01/01","","","","income","","assets:bank:checking","1","$","","1","",""
"1","2008/01/01","","","","income","","income:salary","-1","$","1","","",""
"2","2008/06/01","","","","gift","","assets:bank:checking","1","$","","1","",""
"2","2008/06/01","","","","gift","","income:gifts","-1","$","1","","",""
"3","2008/06/02","","","","save","","assets:bank:saving","1","$","","1","",""
"3","2008/06/02","","","","save","","assets:bank:checking","-1","$","1","","",""
"4","2008/06/03","","*","","eat & shop","","expenses:food","1","$","","1","",""
"4","2008/06/03","","*","","eat & shop","","expenses:supplies","1","$","","1","",""
"4","2008/06/03","","*","","eat & shop","","assets:cash","-2","$","2","","",""
"5","2008/12/31","","*","","pay off","","liabilities:debts","1","$","","1","",""
"5","2008/12/31","","*","","pay off","","assets:bank:checking","-1","$","1","","",""

- There is one CSV record per posting, with the parent transaction's
fields repeated.
- The "txnidx" (transaction index) field shows which postings belong to
the same transaction. (This number might change if transactions are
reordered within the file, files are parsed/included in a different
order, etc.)
- The amount is separated into "commodity" (the symbol) and "amount"
(numeric quantity) fields.
- The numeric amount is repeated in either the "credit" or "debit"
column, for convenience. (Those names are not accurate in the
accounting sense; it just puts negative amounts under credit and zero
or greater amounts under debit.)