Re: [cgiapp] Report generation...

[Ron Savage <suppressed>]

On Mon, 23 Aug 2004 09:48:36 -0700, Tim Howell wrote:

Hi Tim

You probably have enough ideas to go on by now, but I might as well 
throw in another.

Firstly a warning re MS Excel. By default, it splits on commas even 
when those commas are inside quotes. My users put up with that.

I output CSV files if the user clicks a Download button when they are 
already viewing the data.

In other words I prepare the data as below and then display it as 
HTML, and the click on the Download button re-executes the CGI script, 
which generates exactly the same data, but outputs it as CSV.

Wrap will make this a bit hard to read.

1 Build an array ref of data and convert to HTML:
(The 0 here means Do not download)

	my($data) = $self -> build_entity_staff_list_data($entity_id, 0);

	$content -> param(person_loop => [map{ {css_class => 
$$_{'css_class'}, td_loop => [map{ {td => $_} } @{$$_{'td_loop'} }]} } 
@$data]);

2 The template:

	<tmpl_loop name = person_loop>
		<tr class = "<tmpl_var name = css_class default = white>">
			<tmpl_loop name = td_loop>
				<td><tmpl_var name = td></td>
			</tmpl_loop>
		</tr>
	</tmpl_loop>

3 Build an array ref of data and convert to CSV:
(The 1 here means Download)

	my($data) = $self -> build_entity_staff_list_data($entity_id, 1);

	$self -> header_type('none');

	print "Content-Disposition: attachment; filename = 
staff-list.csv\n\n";
	print map{join(',', map{qq|"$_"|} @{$$_{'td_loop'} }) . "\n"} @$data;

	'';

Yes, that's the empty string being returned from this run mode!

4 Generating the data:
(If not downloading, some HTML column headers can be clicked to sort 
on that column)

4a The headings, done once:

	push @data,
	{
		css_class			=> 'head',
		td_loop				=> [],
	};

	push @{$data[0]{'td_loop'} }, $download ? 'Phone' : $self -> link(1, 
'e', "${entity_id}s", 'Phone')			if ($self -> 
user_display_option('phone_option') );
	push @{$data[0]{'td_loop'} }, 'Title';
	push @{$data[0]{'td_loop'} }, $download ? 'Name' : $self -> link(1, 
'e', "${entity_id}p", 'Name');
	push @{$data[0]{'td_loop'} }, 'Email'		if ($self -> 
user_display_option('email_option') );
	push @{$data[0]{'td_loop'} }, $download ? 'Position' : $self -> 
link(1, 'e', "${entity_id}j", 'Position')	if ($self -> 
user_display_option('position_option') );

4b The data, done once per person:

	Get data from db...

		push @data,
		{
			css_class	=> 'white',
			td_loop		=> [],
		};

		push @{$data[$#data]{'td_loop'} }, $$_{'service_number'}													
											if ($self -> user_display_option('phone_option') );
		push @{$data[$#data]{'td_loop'} }, $$_{'person_title'};
		push @{$data[$#data]{'td_loop'} }, $$_{'person_name'};
		push @{$data[$#data]{'td_loop'} }, $download ? $$_{'person_email'} : 
qq|<nobr><a href = 
"mailto:$$_{'person_email'}">$$_{'person_email'}</a></nobr>|	if ($self 
-> user_display_option('email_option') );
		push @{$data[$#data]{'td_loop'} }, $download ? $$_{'position_title'} 
: $self -> format_position($$_{'position_title'})									if ($self -> 
user_display_option('position_option') );

	...

	suppressed;

Ie Return an array ref to both callers.

I had problems outputting (ie downloading) the data in the current 
browser window, so I _always_ open a new window for the download. The 
problems were that after the download, some of the buttons on the 
previous (ie underlying) HTML page were no longer clickable, after the 
user had saved the download. This could be Yet Another IE Problem, of 
course (one of infinitely many).

We had to abandon Firefox, at least in the short term, even though the 
corporate standard at that customer has just shifted from IE to 
Mozilla: http://savage.net.au/Ron/html/firefox-v-0.9.1-bugs.html

As for Excel::Template (and PDF::Template), I did not know about those 
until now. My superficial impression is that there is just a bit too 
much overhead (complexity) there (especially for Excel) in solving 
what is basically a simple problem, although I do appreciate a great 
deal of effort has gone into those modules. I may well use them myself 
one day.
-- 
Ron Savage, suppressed on 24/08/2004. Room EF 312
Deakin University, 221 Burwood Highway, Burwood, VIC 3125, Australia
Phone: +61-3-9251 7067, Fax: +61-3-9251 7604
http://www.deakin.edu.au/~rsav



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