roi does not accept --pnl "" as advertised

Issue description

When I trying to calculate the ROI, it reports the error

hledger roi --inv 'AAPL' --pnl '' --value=end --infer-market-prices -f .\mydata.journal
PS C:\Users\fatca\Documents\Devs\Demo_ledger> hledger roi --inv 'AAPL' --pnl '' --value=end --infer-market-prices -f .\mydata.journal
hledger.exe: Error: Need some transactions classed as investment and not pnl, but the pnl query matches any transaction - will be unable to compute the rates of return

System config

hledger setup
PS C:\Users\fatca\Documents\Devs\Demo_ledger> hledger setup
Checking your hledger setup..
Legend: good, neutral, unknown, warning

hledger
* is running on                                 windows Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.26200.8875] on x86_64
* is built with a supported compiler/RTS   yes  ghc 9.14.1, using threaded RTS
* is a native binary for this machine ?    yes  x86_64
* is a released version ?                   no  hledger 1.99-gd88cf68ad-20260604, windows-x86_64
* is up to date ? checking latest...         ?  couldn't read https://hledger.org/install.html (HTTP failure)
* is installed in PATH (this version) ?    yes  C:\Users\fatca\Documents\Utils\hledger\hledger.exe
* has a system text encoding configured ?  yes  UTF-8, data files must use this encoding
* has a user config file ?                  no  
* has a local config file ?                 no  

terminal
* the NO_COLOR variable is defined ?        no  
* --color is configured by config file ?    no  
* hledger will use color by default ?      yes  
* the PAGER variable is defined ?           no  
* --pager is configured by config file ?    no  
* hledger will use a pager when needed ?    no  no pager was found
* box-drawing chars are used by default ?   no  you can add --pretty to enable them


* the LEDGER_FILE variable is defined ?     no  
* a default journal file is readable ?      no  C:\Users\fatca\.hledger.journal:
data file "C:\Users\fatca\.hledger.journal" was not found.
Please create it first, eg with "hledger add" or a text editor.
Or, specify an existing data file with -f or $LEDGER_FILE.

* its filesystem supports appending ?      yes

demo file

decimal-mark .


account bankA:Cash
account Schwab:AAPL

commodity AAPL
commodity usd

2026-06-06  buy AAPL
    bankA:Cash                            -1000.00 usd
    Schwab:AAPL                    10 AAPL @@ 1000 usd

2026-07-23  buy AAPL
    bankA:Cash                             -500.00 usd
    Schwab:AAPL                   8 AAPL @@ 500.00 usd

2026-07-24  Sell AAPL
    Schwab:AAPL                   -18 AAPL @@ 2000 usd
    bankA:Cash                             2000.00 usd

Thanks for the report. This does seem a little conflicting with the manual:

If you do not record changes in the value of your investment manually, or do not require computation of time-weighted return (TWR), --pnl could be an empty query (--pnl "" or --pnl STR where STR does not match any of your accounts).

Also we could add this error to "this report can fail, for these reasons:".

Even better, for each of those errors we could add a short hint about how to fix it, in the manual (and even in the error message too, if it can be brief and generally applicable).

is it means we do need add a PnL account when executing the "roi" command? Thanks.

You dont need to have a PnL account, but you need to have a --pnl query. My guess is that --pnl '' is being reduced to --pnl by your command shell, perhaps? What happens if you try --pnl foobar?

You dont need to have a PnL account, but you need to have a --pnl query. My guess is that --pnl '' is being reduced to --pnl by your command shell, perhaps? What happens if you try --pnl foobar?

aha, that works. thanks

I can reproduce, in a normal shell that doesn't eat the ''. But the doc says '... --pnl can be an empty query (--pnl "" ...'. I vote to make it work as documented (removing one more error case we'd otherwise have to explain).

Is it possible that the semantics of the empty-string-as-a-query have changed (recently?) from "matches nothing" to "matches everything"?

I am very sure that it used to work as documented at the time it was documented.

It is possible to special-case the empty query in "roi", but then it would not match the behavior of empty string (as the query) elsewhere

I'm going to check this hunch over the weekend, but be a it may, I think a more robust long term solution would be to:

make pnl be an optional flag
document it as such
backport recent changes to 1.xx branch

Unless there are objections, I can see to it

It's a slight mystery. The behaviour changed after 1.51:

~/src/hledger$ hledger-1.51 -f a.j roi --inv 'AAPL' --pnl '' --value=end --infer-market-prices
hledger-1.51: Error: No relevant transactions found. Check your investments query
~/src/hledger$ hledger-1.52 -f a.j roi --inv 'AAPL' --pnl '' --value=end --infer-market-prices
hledger-1.52: Error: Need some transactions classed as investment and not pnl, but the pnl query matches any transaction - will be unable to compute the rates of return

Sounds good, thanks!

fix: roi: make --pnl truly optional, update docs and test file

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roi does not accept --pnl "" as advertised #2670

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roi does not accept --pnl "" as advertised #2670

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Issue description

System config

demo file

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simonmichael commented on Jul 24, 2026

Garfield1985 commented on Jul 24, 2026

adept commented on Jul 24, 2026

Garfield1985 commented on Jul 25, 2026

simonmichael commented on Jul 30, 2026

adept commented on Jul 30, 2026

adept commented on Jul 30, 2026

simonmichael commented on Jul 31, 2026

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