release note documentation nit-pick : -nospendzeroconfchange #3866

dooglus commented at 3:30 AM on March 14, 2014: contributor

The release notes state:

-nospendzeroconfchange command-line option, to avoid spending zero-confirmation change

So I put nospendzeroconfchange=1 in my bitcoin.conf, because I don't want zero-conf change being spent. Then when I looked in the GUI it told me that "-spendzeroconfchange" was set on the command line (it wasn't), but the "spend unconfirmed change" option in the GUI was checked.

The text told me the command line option was overriding the above options - does that mean that even though the checkbox was checked, it wasn't really going to spend unconfirmed change? If so, that's very confusing.

I think it would be better to refer to the option as "spendzeroconfchange" (omit the 'no'), and have the GUI reflect the true state of the options.

laanwj commented at 3:45 AM on March 14, 2014: member

Agreed on the release notes being unclear. The option is called spendzeroconfchange and the GUI already reflects the true state of the option (checked means 1, unchecked means 0, it's not inverted).

laanwj commented at 3:53 AM on March 14, 2014: member

Fixed: https://github.com/laanwj/bitcoin/commit/e67ce3b7b11d55b258ffc9120dba86eb2f8a8faf

laanwj closed this on Mar 14, 2014

dooglus commented at 3:58 AM on March 14, 2014: contributor

I have tried running the GUI 3 times, with 3 different entries in bitcoin.conf:

nospendzeroconfchange=1
spendzeroconfchange=0
spendzeroconfchange=1

In all 3 cases the options screen has shown a check next to the "Spend unconfirmed change" option on the "Wallet" tab.

That's what makes me think the state of the flag isn't reflected in the GUI.

laanwj commented at 4:06 AM on March 14, 2014: member

Right, the state of command line flags is not reflected in the GUI. This is intentional.

Command-line flags take precedence over GUI settings. However, the values from the command line should not be saved as the GUI settings, they are temporary for an invocation.

If the options dialog would show the overridden option in the checkbox, clicking OK would save it as GUI setting, so the next time you launch bitcoin-qt it would remember your command line option without doing anything.

You can see which GUI settings are (temporarily) overridden by command line settings at the bottom of the options dialog.

dooglus commented at 4:15 AM on March 14, 2014: contributor

OK, that makes sense. Thanks for taking the time to explain it.

laanwj commented at 4:18 AM on March 14, 2014: member

I've thought about showing the overridden value of the option on that status line and not only whether the option is overridden through the command line.

dooglus commented at 4:21 AM on March 14, 2014: contributor

I was going to suggest that, but thought I had complained enough already. At least then I would know that my .conf file change had been taken into account. Currently all I see is the GUI apparently showing that it hasn't been.

laanwj commented at 4:31 AM on March 14, 2014: member

It would be useful if there was a RPC/debug console command to show the current effective values of all the options.

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