Windows OS actually let you use both ways of slash in command line for
directory navigation. Forward slash will still appear for URL specification in
Windows as well since that set by a rfc standards ... on an *nix OS a back
slash ('\') is a hint to take next character as literal as part of the string,
and forward slash ('/') is used amongst many other thing for directory
navigation.
rfc3986 which is for "Uniform Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax" states:
3. Syntax Components
The generic URI syntax consists of a hierarchical sequence of
components referred to as the scheme, authority, path, query, and
fragment.
URI = scheme ":" hier-part [ "?" query ] [ "#" fragment ]
hier-part = "//" authority path-abempty
/ path-absolute
/ path-rootless
/ path-empty
The scheme and path components are required, though the path may be
empty (no characters). When authority is present, the path must
either be empty or begin with a slash ("/") character. When
authority is not present, the path cannot begin with two slash
characters ("//"). These restrictions result in five different ABNF
rules for a path (Section 3.3), only one of which will match any
given URI reference.
Of course then individual program can mean whatever they want with that
character...
-----Original Message-----
From: David Carlson <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, March 22, 2026 11:23 PM
To: Stan Brown (using GC 4.14) <[email protected]>
Cc: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [GNC] Use of symbol / in GnuCash
The other place that a forward slash "/" might appear is anywhere that URL's
might appear if the program is operating in a Linux or Unix environment.
Conversely, a backslash would be used in a Windows environment.
On Sun, Mar 22, 2026 at 9:53 PM Stan Brown (using GC 4.14) <
[email protected]> wrote:
> On 2026-03-22 19:22, Ram Vilas Gupta wrote:
> > Can anybody tell me what is the use of / symbol in GnuCash?
> > Is it used in case of Liability / Assets accounts or in case of
> > Income / Expenses accounts?
>
> No.
>
> > In both cases how it differs from : used to create a sub account?
> > However if it is not used in both cases; is there any other use of
> > this symbol / ?
>
> The normal character to separate parent accounts from child accounts
> is the colon, as in Assets:Investments:Vanguard. If you look at Edit »
> Preferences » Accounts you will see "Separator Character" at the top
> of the pane. Clicking the Help button leads to this text:
>
> ======================================================================
> == Separator Character: The account separator is the character that
> separates a parent account from its sub-account, for example
> Utilities:Electric. The default is a : (Colon), but you can also
> select / (Slash), \ (Backslash), - (Dash) or . (Period), or any
> Unicode character that isn't a letter or a number.
> ======================================================================
> ==
>
> The author didn't say so, at least not in this paragraph, but you
> can't use the separator character in the name of an account.
>
> The only reason I can think of to change the separator to something
> other than a colon is if you absolutely must have one or more account
> names that contain colons.
>
> Stan Brown
> Tehachapi, CA, USA
> https://BrownMath.com
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--
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