# Ruby report generation tool **URL:** \ **Category:** ruby-talk\ **Created:** [11 August 2005 14:35 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/ruby-report-generation-tool/20091 "2005-08-11T14:35:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Berger\_Daniel1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecc23a/32.png) [@Berger\_Daniel1](https://rubytalk.org/u/Berger_Daniel1)\ **Post date:** [11 August 2005 14:35 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/ruby-report-generation-tool/20091/1 "2005-08-11T14:35:04Z")
\ Funny you should mention it. I've created a generic reporting framework for use at work. I start with a predictable filesystem layout: report/    archive    bin    lib    log    mail    sql Then I use a predictable naming convention. If you have a script called "foo.rb", then it automatically uses log/foo.log for logging, looks in mail/foo.mail for any email addresses, and looks for all related sql in sql/foo.sql. All configurable of course. It's setup to make automatic handling of database connections, preparing sql statements, email, logging, and archiving as painless as possible (for me, anyway). For the sql itself, I use a specific format. Each sql statement is in its own paragraph and tagged with a comment. That comment is used by method\_missing behind the scenes to dynamically two seperate methods, one that returns the sql statement itself (a string) and one that makes the call out to the database. So, for example, if you have a sql statement in the foo.sql file that looks like this: --main select \* from foo Then you get a Report#main\_sql and Report#main\_data method. The former just returns the sql, while the latter makes a call out to the database. Here's a typical example for a simple report: # foo.rb require "report/genericreport" report = GenericReport.new report.start\_log report.init("db","foo") # Connect to db, prepare all sql statements # Use the logger instance directly report.logger.info{ report.report\_name + " started at " + Time.now.to\_s } # Execute the main query report.main\_data{ |rec|    File.open(report.csv\_file, "w+"){ |file|       file.puts(rec.join(", "))    } } # Sends an email to everyone in mail/foo.mail report.send\_email("report finished") # Move the .csv file to the archive directory File.move(report.csv\_file, report.archive\_dir) report.logger.info{ report.report\_name + " finished at " + Time.now.to\_s } # Cleans up all database and statement handles and the logger instance report.finish # END foo.rb There's more to it than that, but that's the basic idea. I've set it up to do some handling of CSV files, since that's mostly what we use (and Excel reads them fine). I've never been asked to put a report in PDF format, actually. Any reports that wanted special formatting like that I would probably handle separately, or create a subclass that handled it. Anyway, is something like that sorta what you had in mind? I never released it because I kinda figured everyone liked to do reporting their own way. No? Regards, Dan > **···** > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: Greg Brown [mailto:greg7224@gmail.com] > > Sent: Wednesday, August 10, 2005 9:46 PM > > To: ruby-talk ML > > Subject: Ruby report generation tool > > > > For as long as I can remember the end of the summer meant > > slaving over some Free Software project before I went back to > > school. This year will be no exception. I am currently > > trying to develop and mature a pure ruby reporting tool based > > on a very clever hack that James Edward Gray II shared with > > me (along with some great ideas). Basically, I am trying to > > make a tool that will allow you to run queries against a > > database and then get them to painless output to basically > > whatever format you'd like weilding the power of Erb and > > other great tools such as PDF::Writer. So far, the system I > > have built is functional but far from robust. It allows you > > to execute SQL statements passed as strings, passed in from > > files, or even passed in from the database itself and then > > gives you a row by row iterator which can be called from > > within a template OR a pure ruby file. I am also currently > > working on implementing a simple DSL wrapper around SQL to > > allow easy generation of queries. I have a few ideas for > > functions I'd like to add, but I figured the best bet would > > be to ask the community what kinds of features they'd like to > > see in a pure ruby report generation tool. If you let me > > know what you'd like to see in such a tool soon, there is a > > good chance it will end up in Ruport 0.1.0 ([Ru]by > > Re[port]s) which will be released on August 28th on > > RubyForge. So... if you had your ideal reporting tool in > > Ruby, what would it be like? ---
**Author:** ![James\_Edward\_Gray\_II](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ea5d25/32.png) [@James\_Edward\_Gray\_II](https://rubytalk.org/u/James_Edward_Gray_II)\ **Post date:** [11 August 2005 14:52 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/ruby-report-generation-tool/20091/2 "2005-08-11T14:52:34Z")
> Funny you should mention it. I've created a generic reporting framework [snip very interesting project description] > I've set it up to do some handling of CSV files, since that's mostly what we use (and > Excel reads them fine). I've never been asked to put a report in PDF > format, actually. Any reports that wanted special formatting like that I would probably handle > separately, or create a subclass that handled it. I've done quite a bit of this kind of thing for one company I work for. We CSV the data into Excel and then just hit it with formatting macros to pretty it up. I've looked at using Excel's XML format in the past, which allows most formatting, but its lack of chart support (when I last checked, some time ago) was a show stopper for my company. > Anyway, is something like that sorta what you had in mind? I never > released it because I kinda figured everyone liked to do reporting their > own way. No? I can't speak for everyone, but I do a lot of custom reporting in my work (which is what led me to feed Greg the hack in the first place) and I find your software very interesting. I would download it and play with it, if released. James Edward Gray II > **···** > > On Aug 11, 2005, at 9:35 AM, Berger, Daniel wrote: ---
**Author:** ![Greg\_Brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e56c9b/32.png) [@Greg\_Brown](https://rubytalk.org/u/Greg_Brown)\ **Post date:** [11 August 2005 15:06 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/ruby-report-generation-tool/20091/3 "2005-08-11T15:06:11Z")
> Funny you should mention it. I've created a generic reporting framework > for use at work. \ > Any reports that wanted special formatting like that I would probably handle > separately, or create a subclass that handled it. \ > Anyway, is something like that sorta what you had in mind? I never > released it because I kinda figured everyone liked to do reporting their > own way. No? Yes. Everyone does like to do reporting their own way 🙂 Ruport's goal will be to facilitate this, not get in the way of it. I'm basically going to collect all the little things we all need to do that get annoying and put them together in a generic framework so that you can have the low level drudgery done for you and focus on the actual task. This is similarly inspired by Jame's HighLine library and it's purpose. Ruport is not going to be a massively heavy auto-generator, just a tool to help along the way. If you publish your code, I know you'll have at least two people playing with it already. If you do so, I encourage you to be nice and make it GPL compliant so I can steal all your good ideas. As far as the PDF example goes... that was a pretty bad example. I promise a good one once Ruport is more well formed 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Berger\_Daniel1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecc23a/32.png) [@Berger\_Daniel1](https://rubytalk.org/u/Berger_Daniel1)\ **Post date:** [11 August 2005 18:28 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/ruby-report-generation-tool/20091/4 "2005-08-11T18:28:33Z")
James Edward Gray II wrote: \ > I've done quite a bit of this kind of thing for one company I work for. We CSV the data into Excel and then just hit it with formatting macros to pretty it up. I've looked at using Excel's XML format in the past, which allows most formatting, but its lack of chart support (when I last checked, some time ago) was a show stopper for my company. The Spreadsheet::WriteExcel port I did was originally for reporting needs. However, I decided that PHB's wasted too much of my time with inane crap like, "Can you make the column headers blue?". From now on they get CSV files only. Nyah. > I can't speak for everyone, but I do a lot of custom reporting in my work (which is what led me to feed Greg the hack in the first place) and I find your software very interesting. I would download it and play with it, if released. I'll try to get something out tonight or tomorrow. Otherwise it will have to wait a while due to work issues. Regards, Dan PS - The html-table package was also written with reports in mind. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Daniel\_Berger2](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/rubytalk.org/daniel_berger2/32/2243_2.png) [@Daniel\_Berger2](https://rubytalk.org/u/Daniel_Berger2)\ **Post date:** [11 August 2005 21:46 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/ruby-report-generation-tool/20091/5 "2005-08-11T21:46:12Z")
James Edward Gray II wrote: \ > I can't speak for everyone, but I do a lot of custom reporting in my > work (which is what led me to feed Greg the hack in the first place) > and I find your software very interesting. I would download it and > play with it, if released. Ok, I've put something together. Download it from [http://rubyforge.org/frs/download.php/5524/gruf-0.0.1.tar.gz](http://rubyforge.org/frs/download.php/5524/gruf-0.0.1.tar.gz) Regards, Dan ---
**Author:** ![Greg\_Brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e56c9b/32.png) [@Greg\_Brown](https://rubytalk.org/u/Greg_Brown)\ **Post date:** [11 August 2005 22:16 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/ruby-report-generation-tool/20091/6 "2005-08-11T22:16:10Z")
> Daniel Berger wrote: > Ok, I've put something together. > Download it from > [http://rubyforge.org/frs/downl](http://rubyforge.org/frs/downl) oad.php/5524/gruf-0.0.1.tar.gz Neat! I will look at this more later but it definitely has some of the things I'm looking for. Is it okay if I integrate some of this into Ruport? ---
**Author:** ![James\_Edward\_Gray\_II](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ea5d25/32.png) [@James\_Edward\_Gray\_II](https://rubytalk.org/u/James_Edward_Gray_II)\ **Post date:** [13 August 2005 02:51 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/ruby-report-generation-tool/20091/7 "2005-08-13T02:51:40Z")
Thanks for sharing this. I'm playing with it and getting a lot of good ideas. 😃 James Edward Gray II > **···** > > On Aug 11, 2005, at 4:46 PM, Daniel Berger wrote: > > > James Edward Gray II wrote: > > > > \ > > > > > I can't speak for everyone, but I do a lot of custom reporting in my > > > work (which is what led me to feed Greg the hack in the first place) > > > and I find your software very interesting. I would download it and > > > play with it, if released. > > > > Ok, I've put something together. > > > > Download it from > > [http://rubyforge.org/frs/download.php/5524/gruf-0.0.1.tar.gz](http://rubyforge.org/frs/download.php/5524/gruf-0.0.1.tar.gz) ---
**Author:** ![Daniel\_Berger2](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/rubytalk.org/daniel_berger2/32/2243_2.png) [@Daniel\_Berger2](https://rubytalk.org/u/Daniel_Berger2)\ **Post date:** [11 August 2005 22:51 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/ruby-report-generation-tool/20091/8 "2005-08-11T22:51:10Z")
Greg Brown wrote: > \> Daniel Berger wrote: > > \> Ok, I've put something together. > \> Download it from > \> [http://rubyforge.org/frs/downl](http://rubyforge.org/frs/downl) oad.php/5524/gruf-0.0.1.tar.gz > > Neat! I will look at this more later but it definitely has some of the > things I'm looking for. Is it okay if I integrate some of this into > Ruport? Go ahead. 🙂 Dan ---
**Author:** ![Daniel\_Berger2](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/rubytalk.org/daniel_berger2/32/2243_2.png) [@Daniel\_Berger2](https://rubytalk.org/u/Daniel_Berger2)\ **Post date:** [13 August 2005 13:56 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/ruby-report-generation-tool/20091/9 "2005-08-13T13:56:14Z")
James Edward Gray II wrote: > **···** > > > On Aug 11, 2005, at 4:46 PM, Daniel Berger wrote: > > > > \> James Edward Gray II wrote: > > \> > > \> \ > > \> > > \> > > \>\> I can't speak for everyone, but I do a lot of custom reporting in my > > \>\> work (which is what led me to feed Greg the hack in the first place) > > \>\> and I find your software very interesting. I would download it and > > \>\> play with it, if released. > > \>\> > > \> > > \> Ok, I've put something together. > > \> > > \> Download it from > > \> [http://rubyforge.org/frs/download.php/5524/gruf-0.0.1.tar.gz](http://rubyforge.org/frs/download.php/5524/gruf-0.0.1.tar.gz) > > > > Thanks for sharing this. I'm playing with it and getting a lot of > > good ideas. 😃 > > Thanks. I was just thinking that I should add a "config" directory for > those things you can't really hard code in a generic way, such as a > mailhost, etc. I'd use YAML. > > Regards, > > Dan ---
**Author:** ![Greg\_Brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e56c9b/32.png) [@Greg\_Brown](https://rubytalk.org/u/Greg_Brown)\ **Post date:** [12 August 2005 01:41 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/ruby-report-generation-tool/20091/10 "2005-08-12T01:41:11Z")
> > Neat! I will look at this more later but it definitely has some of the > > things I'm looking for. Is it okay if I integrate some of this into > > Ruport? > Go ahead. 🙂 Thank you Daniel. You will be given credit for anything I use. Anyone who has any ideas or suggestions for a reporting engine in pure ruby feel free to speak up as my first version will be arbitrarily released on August 28th on rubyforge. (Project name: Ruport) ---
**Author:** ![Greg\_Brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e56c9b/32.png) [@Greg\_Brown](https://rubytalk.org/u/Greg_Brown)\ **Post date:** [13 August 2005 14:51 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/ruby-report-generation-tool/20091/11 "2005-08-13T14:51:12Z")
Daniel Berger wrote: > I was just thinking that I should add a "config" directory for > those things you can't really hard code in a generic way, such as a > mailhost, etc. I'd use YAML. This exists in Ruport 🙂 The more I look through your code, the happier I am that you have released it. Thank you! ---
**Author:** ![Daniel\_Berger2](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/rubytalk.org/daniel_berger2/32/2243_2.png) [@Daniel\_Berger2](https://rubytalk.org/u/Daniel_Berger2)\ **Post date:** [13 August 2005 21:06 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/ruby-report-generation-tool/20091/12 "2005-08-13T21:06:15Z")
Greg Brown wrote: > Daniel Berger wrote: > \> I was just thinking that I should add a "config" directory for > \> those things you can't really hard code in a generic way, such as a > \> mailhost, etc. I'd use YAML. > > This exists in Ruport 🙂 > The more I look through your code, the happier I am that you have > released it. > > Thank you! Without looking at Ruport, I added support for YAML config files in gruf. So, say you have a config file that looks like this: # foo.config host: blah.com mailhost: bar.com ENV:    LD\_LIBRARY\_PATH: /usr/lib    ORACLE\_HOME: /opt/oracle Then you call Report#configure. This will automatically generate "host" and "mailhost" methods (accessors) for you, with the values set appropriately. The ENV tag is special in that it simply sets environment variables for your script (which I need sometimes). Checked into CVS. 🙂 Regards, Dan ---
**Author:** ![Greg\_Brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e56c9b/32.png) [@Greg\_Brown](https://rubytalk.org/u/Greg_Brown)\ **Post date:** [14 August 2005 09:41 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/ruby-report-generation-tool/20091/13 "2005-08-14T09:41:12Z")
Daniel Berger wrote: > Without looking at Ruport, I added support for YAML config files in > gruf. So, say you have a config file that looks like this: You'd need to break into some computers to see Ruport just yet 🙂 It hasn't been released yet! However, the development head will be moved to CVS on rubyforge when the first release comes out. So it's only going to be a secret until the 28th > # foo.config > host: blah.com > mailhost: bar.com > ENV: >    LD\_LIBRARY\_PATH: /usr/lib >    ORACLE\_HOME: /opt/oracle > > Then you call Report#configure. This will automatically generate > "host" and "mailhost" methods (accessors) for you, with the values set > appropriately. The ENV tag is special in that it simply sets > environment variables for your script (which I need sometimes). Very neat! I'll definitely look into something like this for Ruport. I don't handle ENV variables yet, though my config setup (or Jame's actually) is essentially the same. -Greg ---
**Author:** ![Daniel\_Berger2](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/rubytalk.org/daniel_berger2/32/2243_2.png) [@Daniel\_Berger2](https://rubytalk.org/u/Daniel_Berger2)\ **Post date:** [16 August 2005 19:06 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/ruby-report-generation-tool/20091/14 "2005-08-16T19:06:13Z")
Greg Brown wrote: > Daniel Berger wrote: > > \> Without looking at Ruport, I added support for YAML config files in > \> gruf. So, say you have a config file that looks like this: > > You'd need to break into some computers to see Ruport just yet 🙂 It > hasn't been released yet! However, the development head will be moved > to CVS on rubyforge when the first release comes out. So it's only > going to be a secret until the 28th > > \> > \> # foo.config > \> host: blah.com > \> mailhost: bar.com > \> ENV: > \> LD\_LIBRARY\_PATH: /usr/lib > \> ORACLE\_HOME: /opt/oracle > \> > \> Then you call Report#configure. This will automatically generate > \> "host" and "mailhost" methods (accessors) for you, with the values set > \> appropriately. The ENV tag is special in that it simply sets > \> environment variables for your script (which I need sometimes). > > Very neat! I'll definitely look into something like this for Ruport. > I don't handle ENV variables yet, though my config setup (or Jame's > actually) is essentially the same. > > -Greg I've put release 0.0.2 out there which has the config support, and a few other minor tweaks and fixes. [http://rubyforge.org/frs/download.php/5594/gruf-0.0.2.tar.gz](http://rubyforge.org/frs/download.php/5594/gruf-0.0.2.tar.gz) Regards, Dan