question on criteria for deleting a category

[Jack]

On 2020.03.23 18:26, Jack wrote:
> I'm updating the handbook chapter on Categories, and have run into  
> something I can't explain.  If I display the Categories View and  
> right click on a category, sometimes "Delete" is enabled, and  
> sometimes it is not.  For categories with existing transactions, if  
> Delete is enabled, I am prompted for another category for reassigning  
> the transactions.  So, mere presence of transactions does not disable  
> the Delete action.
> 
> I've tried actually looking into the xml file, and that has only  
> confused me further.  There seem to be several odd things going on,  
> and I'm not sure if they are related or not.  In these examples, both  
> categories of interest also have matching payees.
> 
> - In many cases, the transaction itself has a MEMO which is not  
> visible anywhere in the GUI, which only shows the MEMOs of the  
> appropriate SPLIT, depending on which ledger (account, category,  
> payee) I look at.
> - I don't see any consistency or pattern in whether there is a PAYEE  
> in the split for the CATEGORY, although I think it is almost always  
> present in the split for the account.  There also seems to be no way  
> to change this, as you can't edit a transaction in the context of a  
> category.
> 
> Is there something I'm not understanding, or might this just be  
> another case where I have strange data?
> 
> Jack
I can add another observation - when looking at the Category ledger, if  
there is no memo, then the display section in the ledger shows the  
Transfer to: field, but if there IS something in the memo field, the  
details don't show either the memo or the Transfer to: account.  I'm  
hoping this is just an anomaly in the ledger code when displaying a  
category.  When looking at the ledger for either the Payee or the  
Account, all fields are appropriately shown in the details column.