Select Transactions
Before we continue with the expense tracking workflow let's take a short detour to introduce the select command.
The general form of this command is
$ dex select C1 C2 ...
where the items following the word "select" are constraint options. Constraints can specify dates, account names, description patterns, and many other attributes of transactions.
If no constraints are given Dexter prints all transactions in the database:
$ dex select
Transactions
┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
┃ date ┃ credit ┃ debit ┃ amount ┃ description ┃ comment ┃ tags ┃
┡━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┩
│ 2024-04-01 │ checking │ restaurant │ $70.00 │ Check #153: Glenwood │ │ │
│ 2024-04-02 │ checking │ mortgage │ $1,000.00 │ Mortgage │ │ │
│ 2024-04-02 │ visa │ expenses:car │ $5.00 │ Wash-it Express │ │ │
...
The complete list of constraints and other options can be found in dex select.
In this section we'll just show a few that will be useful for exploring our initial set of transactions.
Date Ranges
Use --start_date or --end_date (or both) to limit the set of results to a particular range of dates.
$ dex select --start_date 2024-04-21 --end_date 2024-04-22
Transactions
┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
┃ date ┃ credit ┃ debit ┃ amount ┃ description ┃ comment ┃ tags ┃
┡━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┩
│ 2024-04-21 │ visa │ household │ $50.00 │ Jerry's Home Eugene │ │ │
│ 2024-04-22 │ visa │ restaurant │ $50.00 │ Hey Neighbor │ │ │
│ 2024-04-22 │ visa │ yard │ $100.00 │ Lane Forest Products │ │ │
│ 2024-04-22 │ yoyodyne │ checking │ $3,000.00 │ Yoyodyne │ │ │
│ 2024-04-22 │ checking │ utility │ $100.00 │ AT&T │ │ │
│ 2024-04-22 │ household │ visa │ $20.00 │ Jerry's Home Eugene │ return │ │
└──────────────┴──────────────────────┴──────────────────────┴──────────────┴────────────────────────────────┴─────────────────┴─────────────────┘
Amounts
We can use --amount to specify an exact amount, in which case Dexter will print transactions only if they have this amount, or --min_amount and --max_amount to specify ranges.
$ dex select --max_amount 10.00
Transactions
┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
┃ date ┃ credit ┃ debit ┃ amount ┃ description ┃ comment ┃ tags ┃
┡━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┩
│ 2024-04-02 │ visa │ expenses:car │ $5.00 │ Wash-it Express │ │ │
│ 2024-04-30 │ interest │ checking │ $0.68 │ Interest │ │ │
│ 2024-04-30 │ interest │ savings │ $1.59 │ Interest │ │ │
└──────────────┴──────────────────────┴──────────────────────┴──────────────┴────────────────────────────────┴─────────────────┴─────────────────┘
Accounts
TBD
Entries
The --entry option tells Dexter to print individual postings instead of transactions.
Most of the other options, for dates, amounts, etc, are make sense for postings.
$ dex select --entry --account food --full
Entries
┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
┃ date ┃ account ┃ amount ┃ column ┃ description ┃ tags ┃
┡━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┩
│ 2024-04-01 │ expenses:food:restaurant │ $70.00 │ debit │ repl Check # 153: Completed/C… │ │
│ 2024-04-03 │ expenses:food:restaurant │ $35.00 │ credit │ repl Transfer from Venmo/VENM… │ │
│ 2024-04-12 │ expenses:food:groceries │ $65.00 │ debit │ repl HATCH CHILE MARKET │ │
│ 2024-04-22 │ expenses:food:restaurant │ $50.00 │ debit │ match TST* HEY NEIGHBOR - TBD │ │
│ 2024-04-23 │ expenses:food:groceries │ $15.00 │ debit │ match Everyone's Market/EVERY… │ │
│ 2024-04-24 │ expenses:food:groceries │ $15.00 │ debit │ match NEWMAN'S FISH COMPANY │ │
│ 2024-04-26 │ expenses:food:groceries │ $15.00 │ debit │ match LONGS MEAT MARKET │ │
└──────────────┴───────────────────────────┴─────────────────┴────────────┴────────────────────────────────┴─────────────────┘