[RndTbl] GnuCash crash on secret payload in XML file

[Dan Martin]

I have used GnuCash for many years, building up huge XML files, and never
had an issue until I tried some auto-entry with a program.  If the file is
not EXACTLY what it expects, it will fail.

No problem getting data out, though it can be processor intensive to
rebuild the trees.  But I have not had the patience to dig into source code
to be able to write to it.

It would be nice to have a high level API to allow auto entry, modify
reports, etc.

-Dan

On Mon, Mar 13, 2017 at 3:04 AM, Hartmut W Sager <hwsager at marityme.net>
wrote:

> OK, it's late at night, and I did something that Trevor likes doing.  :)
> I went looking for trouble.  But hey, I had a good reason, and had been
> planning this experiment for weeks already.
>
> My current accounting is still my own FoxPro concoction (started in 1992
> and updated a few hundred times), and for the last few years I knew I would
> have to move it.  Besides export/import issues, I have several extra fields
> of information that I need to preserve (even if not accessible outside of
> raw XML editing), so I edited a good GnuCash native XML file by adding a
> secret payload in one existing transaction with
> <mynewtag>mypayload</mynewtag>, at the same level as the other fields of
> that transaction.  I was hoping it would be ignored on load, and restored
> on save.
>
> The result:  GnuCrash crashed totally while opening the edited XML file!
> Yeah, just crashed with a crash message and self-quit after that.  Is
> GnuCash that unstable???
>
> BTW, a simple raw XML edit of an existing text field of a transaction
> works fine, and is then shown in GnuCash when the file is opened.
>
> Hartmut W Sager - Tel +1-204-339-8331 <(204)%20339-8331>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Roundtable mailing list
> Roundtable at muug.ca
> https://muug.ca/mailman/listinfo/roundtable
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://muug.ca/pipermail/roundtable/attachments/20170313/784af640/attachment-0001.html>