For use in scripts it might be helpful to get a flat list of accounts from a given gnucash file. Fortunately gnucash has an extensive python binding. See the script gnucash_accounts.py for an example on how to use it:
$ ./gnucash_accounts.py gnucash.gnucash Aktiva:Barvermögen:Bargeld Aktiva:Barvermögen:Girokonto Aktiva:Barvermögen:Sparkonto [...]