Re: [Plug] how would you do a report off of an SQL database ?

[Kyle Burton <mortis@voicenet.com>]

I've found in almost evry case, HTML fails at proper formatting when
producing documents to be printed.  There isn't precise enough control over
the types of things you need (margins, font size, etc) with all the 
browser/platform/installed font issues I just couldn't get HTML to come
out the same reliably/reproducibly in a browser/platform indepenant way.

I had suggested using LyX for 'template' purposes.  I've often found it
very educational to use a tool like LyX to whip up a sample document,
then dive into the TeX/LaTeX source it produces to use in my programs.
This helped me when learning HTML to produce it from programs -- i.e. 
looking at examples.

I'd second Michale's suggestion of using python -- if you don't already
have a favorite rapid application development language, I'd probably go
with python at this point (or perl) as they have large numbers of pre-build
libararies for doing eactly this type of work (creating GIFs, charts, etc).

Acutal use of tools is an exercise best left up to the reader.


k

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mortis@voicenet.com                            http://www.voicenet.com/~mortis
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On Thu, 30 Sep 1999, Michael W. Ryan wrote:

> On Thu, 30 Sep 1999, Darxus wrote:
> 
> > As you know, I work in a microsoft environment.  But there are Linux
> > possibilities around here.  One of the things I do is real pretty reports
> > off of an SQL database, using ms access.  How would you do the equivalent
> > under Linux ?  I'm not talking about plaintext stuff I could do w/
> > straight perl, I'm talking about graphical stuff, nicely laid out, with
> > charts & stuff (which is admitedly rather easy in ms access, when it
> > works).  
> 
> First, I'd pick the programming language of our choice (I'll leave
> guessing the one I'd suggest as an exercise for the reader).  You could
> probably write a script/program to access the database of your choice (no,
> I don't have any strong feelings on this one), and then pull data from the
> system and put together a document using that data.
> 
> The only other choice is the type of document to construct.  A PostScript
> document would be the most direct, but this would require a knowledge of
> PS programming.  Another option would be to make it a LaTeX document (I'd
> stay away from LyX, as it's only a graphical front-end to LaTeX and tends
> to be rather limited).
> 
> A third choice is to make an HTML document and for graphics, use any
> number tools for creating graphic images.  Python, for example (oop...
> gave myself away), has a package that allows you to construct a GIF (maybe
> other formats, also) programatically.
> 
> Not quite as easy and graphically oriented as Access, but some
> possibilities.
> 
> Michael W. Ryan, MCP, MCT     | OTAKON 1999
> mryan@netaxs.com              | Convention of Otaku Generation
> http://www.netaxs.com/~mryan/ | http://www.otakon.com/
> 
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> PGP public key available by fingering mryan@unix.netaxs.com (use -l opt)
> 
> 
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