Low-level wrapper around the bean-check command-line tool.
Checker is the only place that shells out to Beancount. It is used by
Beancount.Engine.CLI and is kept separate so the process-management
concerns (locating the binary, temp files, capturing output) live in one
place.
The path to bean-check is configurable:
config :beancount_ex, bean_check_path: "bean-check"Summary
Functions
Whether the configured bean-check executable is available on this machine.
Return the configured path to the bean-check executable.
Check a .bean file on disk, returning a normalized Beancount.Result.
Check Beancount text by writing it to a temporary file and validating it.
Functions
@spec available?() :: boolean()
Whether the configured bean-check executable is available on this machine.
Examples
iex> is_boolean(Beancount.Checker.available?())
true@spec bean_check_path() :: String.t()
Return the configured path to the bean-check executable.
Examples
iex> is_binary(Beancount.Checker.bean_check_path())
true@spec check_file(Path.t()) :: {:ok, Beancount.Result.t()} | {:error, Beancount.Result.t()}
Check a .bean file on disk, returning a normalized Beancount.Result.
Raises Beancount.Checker.NotInstalledError if bean-check is not available.
Examples
path = Path.join(System.tmp_dir!(), "checker_example.bean")
File.write!(path, """
2026-01-01 open Assets:Bank USD
2026-01-01 open Income:Salary USD
2026-01-31 * "Employer" "Salary"
Assets:Bank 100 USD
Income:Salary -100 USD
""")
if Beancount.Checker.available?() do
{:ok, _} = Beancount.Checker.check_file(path)
end@spec check_text(binary()) :: {:ok, Beancount.Result.t()} | {:error, Beancount.Result.t()}
Check Beancount text by writing it to a temporary file and validating it.
Examples
text = """
2026-01-01 open Assets:Bank USD
2026-01-01 open Income:Salary USD
2026-01-31 * "Employer" "Salary"
Assets:Bank 100 USD
Income:Salary -100 USD
"""
if Beancount.Checker.available?() do
{:ok, %Beancount.Result{status: :ok}} = Beancount.Checker.check_text(text)
end