ipwizard wrote:In fact what you experience is caused by a security feature of the underlying Qt framework. What happens is that the order of the XML attributes is random, hence the many differences in your file when saving it.

See the Qt documentation on how you can possibly turn off the randomization for your purpose. I have not verified that method, though.

This randomization of QHash is enabled by default. Even though programs should never depend on a particular QHash ordering, there may be situations where you temporarily need deterministic behavior, for example for debugging or regression testing. To disable the randomization, define the environment variable QT_HASH_SEED to have the value 0. Alternatively, you can call the qSetGlobalQHashSeed() function (https://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qhash.html#qSetGlobalQHashSeed ) with the value 0.

Qt
Version 5.15.3 (built against 5.15.3)

ipwizard wrote:Did you save it once after you have setup the env var or twice and compared the two versions after you have set it up? Turning off the randomization in the first step will of course bring a different result as the seed for the hash is different. Only two versions after the env var is set will use the same seed (if that feature works as expected).

1. Full Backup to external drive

2. Modify /etc/environment to add

QT_HASH_SEED=0

as per https://superuser.com/questions/339617/ ... 652#339652

3. Log off, login and check value

printenv QT_HASH_SEED
0

4. KMM - Open Australian.kmy and 'save as XML' - filename qt1.xml

5. KMM - Open Australian.kmy again and add a transaction, save and backup

6. 'save as XML' - filename qt2.xml

7. Beyond Compare - compare qt1.xml and qt2.xml

Found only six different sections. There was the transaction added, it's splits and then 5 other modifications to values. Great to see it all in nice and neat 'order'.

8. Hold backup from step 5. Open Australian.kmy again, make a modification to two transactions, save and backup

9. 'save as XML' - filename qt3.xml

10. Beyond Compare - compare qt2.xml and qt3.xml

Found only 14 different sections. As the 2 transactions updated were for a reconciliation flag, the changes reflected for the accounts, payees and splits,etc.

The ONLY section/s of the XML file that were (now) out of order were to do with 'category ID' - see https://pasteboard.co/2CEGJnR7e771.png. If that is the only random/disorder that is okay for testing and reconciliation, however it will obviously be better to stick with the "only twice" rules as "ipwizard" suggested.

11. Cleanup - modify /etc/environment to remove

QT_HASH_SEED=0

log off, login and check the environment variable

After log off, login ..

$ printenv QT_HASH_SEED
0

$ cat /etc/environment
PATH="/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games:/usr/local/games:/snap/bin"

Tried another log off, log on. Environment variable was still there. Cache maybe ?? Rebooted and env. variable was now gone.