Re: Some ideas to the report engine...

["Derek A. Neighbors" <derek gnue org>]

Carlos,

> Well, here you have the idea that i have now to the implementation of
> the report engine (at the moment I'm only thinking the report viewer
> part):

Any reason why working on the client first?  I would suggest hacking
together an engine that reads a definition file and creates and XML
output.  Then two different teams can begin work.  One make a client and
the other making a converter to convert the xml output to diff formats. 
While the engine continues to be enhanced.  Just an idea.
 
> Well, the IDL that I'll began to implement will be like this:
> 
>         A method to open a report (openreport), that will gave us a
>         Report object.
>         A method to poblate a report with data from a gda source
>         (fillreport)
>         A method to save the report with its data (export as XML, PS,
>         PDF, HTML, etc.) (savereport)
>         And a method to close the report (closereport).
> 
>         Also it needs all the exceptions to take care about the errors,
>         etc.


I would think this is hard to do without the a report (from the server)
to open.  As well as the rest, but I think we could just be suffering
some language barrier issues. :)  

> 
> The idea is that with the Report object that we have filled after the
> fillreport call, we could render it with a gnome-report or kde-report or
> ncurses-report (or the name it has).

I am not seeing the client necessarily work like this.  Sounds like too
much work. :)  I would go for reuse some how.  I think xPDF is free or
ghostview.  So I would have report server make .ps or .pdf stream/file
and reuse the code from xPDF/ghostview in a client for viewing.  

> Or prehaps you want to save it as PS, PDF, HTML, XML (then you have the
> savereport method). Then, will be the report-server which will export
> this data as we talk before.

I would say only difference in save is you push stream to file instead
of to viewer.

> I think that this is the most simple approachment to this problem,
> please, suggestions, ideas, questions are welcomed.

Derek Neighbors
GNU Enterprise
http://www.gnue.org
derek gnue org