Allen, i think your primary design consideration is this;
....
> - Need to be able to build a large variety of reports based on existing data
....
This would lead me to jump at a 'plugin' solution.
I'd make:
- 1 superclass as interface to the rest of your webapp(s)
- 1 "top-class" that has the logic applicable to all reports.
(or just 1 top-level class, if you want)
- 1 to many plugin classes, that all use the same simple interfaces.
By using arrays as options/return-results, the whole thing becomes
extensible without breaking compatibility.
I'm working on a newsscraper (same problem basically, doing both input
to db and output from it) and for that i'm not even using classes. I'm
using plain-old functions with a specific naming convention in files,
also named according to a convention.
Some examples of plugin functions exposed in 'plugin.news.digg.php':
function plugin__news__digg__pages($mp)
function plugin__news__digg__isValidPage ($page, $pageContent)
function plugin__news__digg__parser__siteHTML ($page, $pageContent)
$mp = user-level parameters (from the superclass)
__pages returns a simple array that tells the top-class which pages to
curl (and with which parser-function (like __parser__siteHTML)),
before passing $pageContent along with $page (a conventionized
meta-data array, mostly built up by __pages) to the parser function
__parser__siteHTML.
All parser functions return an array that the top-level class can use
to insert their "hits" into the db.
Plugin functions can be called by $func =
'plugin__news__digg__parser__siteHTML'; $func ($page, $pageContent);
In your case, Allen, i'd start with plugins that accept user-level
parameters (both generic and specific in the same $options array, and
to prevent confusion through feature-creep, use more than 1 level in
the array) and then output HTML. Try to use CSS effectively.
Using the smarty library in plugins' HTML generation functions is
probably overkill, but some people like such midware.
Your top-level class can take care of any caching of finished reports.
Your superclass is responsible for building up the "frame" of the
webpage that holds the reports.
If two or more plugins need (almost) the same data, consider building
a datastore class, that sits "below" all the plugins (and the
top-class).
And i highly recommend adodb.sf.net as the db-abstraction layer, to be
used exclusively for all db access by all other classes.
On Thu, Jan 28, 2010 at 5:20 AM, Allen McCabe <allenmccabe@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> I actually started on a report class yesterday, and I have a few questions,
> but first some details:
>
> - Reports will be on user orders (ticket reservations).
> - Need to be able to build a large variety of reports based on existing data
> + Orders by a specific user
> + Orders for a specific product (event)
> + Orders by a user sub-group (organization)
> + Orders by a user super-group (school district)
> - Reports need data from a primary table (orders) and several secondary
> tables (users, order_lineitems, etc.)
>
> Now, I started to approach this with a class that builds an HTML table with
> the data as the end product, based upon the parameters I supply.
>
> There shall be a table_header property which will be an array of column
> names, a rows property which will be a bi-dimensional array which will
> contain the data for each row.
>
> I want to have methods like the following:
>
> <?php
>
> $Report->createNew('orders', 35); // STARTS AN ORDER USING `orders` TABLE -
> SHOW ID 35
> $Report->addColumn('contact'); // USERNAME - `users` TABLE
> $Report->addColumn('phone'); // USER'S PHONE NUMBER - `users` TABLE
> $Report->addColumn('quantity'); // TICKETS REQUESTED - `order_lineitems`
> TABLE
>
> // SAVE OBJECT TO `reports` TABLE
> $report = serialize($Report);
>
> $success = mysql_query('INSERT INTO `reports` (`data`) VALUES (\'' . $report
> . '\') ;');
>
> if ($success) { $Notify->addtoQ('Report succesfully saved.', 'confirm'); }
> else { $Notify->addtoQ('There was en error saving the report.', 'error'); }
>
> ?>
>
> I was having a tough time wrapping my head around how to make the report
> class less specific and more flexible. For example, I have the user's
> user_id already stored in the `orders` table (of course, foreign key), but I
> want to display their username (or firstname, lastname pair), which would
> require another call to the `users` table, so I had a $queries property,
> which would be an array of queries to execute, but then I couldn't figure
> out how to handle each one, because each is handled uniquely.
>
> So, I have to be less general, and more specific. Call what I want by
> nickname, ie. $Report->addColumn('userRealName'), and have a switch
> statement within the addColumn() method to check for nicknames. Whew! That
> sounds awful!
>
> And how do I handle each result in the queries array? Should I create an
> associate array (ie. 'username' => 'SELECT `username` FROM `users`....',
> 'school' => 'SELECT `name` FROM `organization`... ') and again, have a
> switch statement to determine how to handle the database result arrays?
>
> Can anyone point me in the right direction? Should I just get down and dirty
> and write a focused class (or even procedural?) for different types of
> reports that I anticipate needing?
>
>
> This is a tough one! Thanks!
>
> On Wed, Jan 27, 2010 at 4:32 AM, Ashley Sheridan
> <ash@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 2010-01-26 at 18:54 +0100, PEPITOVADECURT wrote:
>>
>> > Exists any reports generator that exports directly to html/php?
>> >
>> >
>>
>>
>> What do you want to generate reports on? I would assume this would be
>> some sort of data from a database, and that you're looking for a
>> PHP-based reporting tool that can output as HTML for viewing your
>> reports in a web browser?
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Ash
>> http://www.ashleysheridan.co.uk
>>
>>
>>
>
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