Beancount: Use symbols of ":" to be comment symbols as ; does

Question

I am working on beancount and plan to integrate the beancount accounting and org todo agenda.

****** TODO "Learn How to Use Beancount"
;;Skills accounting
2019-09-10 * "Learn How to Use Beancount"
           Assets:Labor -2  HOUR
           Expenses:Applications:Beancount

However, when start to clocking the task as

****** TODO "Learn How to Use Beancount"
:LOGBOOK:
CLOCK: [2019-09-11 Wed 00:20]
:END:
;;Skills accounting
2019-09-10 * "Learn How to Use Beancount"
           Assets:Labor -2 HOUR
           Expenses:Applications:Beancount

Bean report multiple errors:

So, bean's syntax does not ignore symbols of : and keywords of CLOCK.

How could enable them as comment sysmbols in beancount?

I have no idea what Beancount is. Adding a link to it in your question might help at least some of us out here. — NickD

Akuukis Akuukis · Accepted Answer · 2020-03-16T09:14:48

You can't use : like that because it messes up with Beancount syntax.

The proper way to annotate Beancount transactions is to add either tag or meta to them. Example:

;;Skills accounting
2019-09-10 * "Learn How to Use Beancount" #logbook ;<-- a tag.
    clock: "[2019-09-11 Wed 00:20]"  ;<-- a meta.
    Assets:Labor -2 HOUR
    Expenses:Applications:Beancount

To transform those transaction entries you create your own custom plugin that looks for #logbook tagged transactions and do something with them based on clock meta.

Or, if you want to prepare export file for calendar, then create a script that imports beancount library, parsers and filters your beancount file and outputs a custom string.

Beancount: Use symbols of ":" to be comment symbols as ; does

1 Answers