Why is there a duplicate `include` error?

[Aaron Stacy]

The beancount loader has an error if a file is imported multiple times (code). 

I noticed because I was trying to organize my ledger something like this:

And got the error. I want each of banking.beancount and income.beancount to include accounts.beancount because my editor plugin will give me errors if I don't (since the accounts aren't defined).

Looks like this functionality has been around just about as long as the include directive (commit), and I couldn't find any docs on why this would be an error.

When I remove the error, the loading logic seems to work fine. Any chance I could mail a PR to remove this error?

[Timothy Jesionowski]

I would love for that restriction to be removed. Never thought about patching it myself, I hope there's no deep architectural reason for that constraint?

Sincerely,

Timothy Jesionowski

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[Simon Guest]

I had a quick look at this in limabean, and it's easily done for sure.

But there seems to be one hard problem:  the tag and metadata context prior to inclusion in each place may differ.  In my quick implementation, only the first is honoured.  Which is a bit of a dirty hack, eh?

pushtag #included
include "include-duplicate/included.beancount"
poptag #included

pushtag #duplicate-include
include "include-duplicate/included.beancount"
poptag #duplicate-include

results in:

2023-05-31 * "Include some beer" #included
  Assets:Bank:Current -15.30 NZD
  Expenses:Entertainment:Drinks-and-snacks

2023-06-01 * "Inclusion is everything" #included
  Assets:Bank:Current -5.65 NZD
  Expenses:Groceries

Oops, missing that #duplicate-include tag.  🤷

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[Simon Guest]

It turned out not to be too difficult to do what I believe is the right thing, in limabean at least.

The right thing in my view is to allow the duplicate include if and only if the include context of tags and metadata is identical.

This is now implemented on main branch of limabean, although not yet in an official release.  (I have some work to finish on plugins before making a new release.)

Multiple include examples are here.

And for example:

kiri> limabean --beanfile examples/beancount/multiple-includes.beancount
[Rebel readline] Type :repl/help for online help info
[limabean] 5 directives loaded from examples/beancount/multiple-includes.beancount

user=> (show (journal))
2014-01-27  Income:Donations    Donations  -100.00  NZD  -100.00 NZD
2014-01-27  Assets:Common       Donations   100.00  NZD
2014-02-05  Income:Work         Work       -750.00  NZD  -750.00 NZD
2014-02-05  Assets:Common       Work        750.00  NZD
:ok

kiri> limabean --beanfile examples/beancount/multiple-includes-different-context.beancount
[Rebel readline] Type :repl/help for online help info
Error: duplicate include
   ╭─[ examples/beancount/multiple-includes/included-2.beancount:1:9 ]
   │
 1 │ include "common.beancount"
   │         ─────────┬────────
   │                  ╰────────── context #include-2
   │
   ├─[ examples/beancount/multiple-includes/included-1.beancount:1:9 ]
   │
 1 │ include "common.beancount"
   │         ─────────┬────────
   │                  ╰────────── context #include-1
───╯

This was pretty easy to implement in limabean's Rust parser as the codebase is still quite fresh, and, well, Rust.

Hoping that someone will be able to enjoy this.  And that someone else might be able to add a similar implementation for OG Beancount. 🤞

[David Avraamides]

Couldn't you just include accounts.beancount in main.beancount before banking.beancount and income.beancount? That's what I do. My main.bean (simplified) is:

; global stuff

include "commodities.bean"

include "accounts.bean"

include "prices.bean"

; individual account history

include "data/amazon_david.bean"

include "data/amazon_karen.bean"

include "data/amex_david.bean"

include "data/amex_karen.bean"

(many more individual account includes...)

...

And then I don't have any other include statements in the account-specific bean files.

Or does that not address your problem?

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[Timothy Jesionowski]

It constrains the file architecture, and in particular means you have to carefully duplicate a lot of include directives to have different main.beancount files tracking the same (or mostly the same) ledger.

Sincerely,

Timothy Jesionowski

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/beancount/CAN5otWNROPuhtxBwE%3D8Fj0wxW9WAQcy3yaFpbPBnZ1aavVjcng%40mail.gmail.com.

[Aaron Stacy]

On Tuesday, March 3, 2026 at 5:31:21 AM UTC-6 David Avraamides wrote:

Couldn't you just include accounts.beancount in main.beancount before banking.beancount and income.beancount? That's what I do. My main.bean (simplified) is:

; global stuff

include "commodities.bean"

include "accounts.bean"

include "prices.bean"

; individual account history

include "data/amazon_david.bean"

include "data/amazon_karen.bean"

include "data/amex_david.bean"

include "data/amex_karen.bean"

(many more individual account includes...)

...

And then I don't have any other include statements in the account-specific bean files.

Or does that not address your problem?

Checking the main ledger would work, but unfortunately editor plugins would highlight errors in the individual account histories. I find these inline errors a nice time saver when reconciling imports.