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Unix / OSX SQL reporting tool

Posted: Wed Oct 12, 2005 4:31 pm
by marianopeterson
Can anybody recommend a SQL reporting tool for OS X or Unix?
I’m looking for a tool that provides:
  • * A designer for formatting the look of the report, and possibly even configures the search criteria.
    * A runtime engine for programmatically running the report, generating the output,
    * Ideally offers output as HTML... hopefully even PDF. RTF and Excel would be nice, but not required.
    * Ideally offers a command line interface (or alternatively a PECL extension).
If the designer only runs on Windows that is OK – but the runtime engine (report generation) needs to run on Unix or (preferably) OS X.

Crystal Reports looks great, but only generates reports on Windows. Something similar for OS X would be great.

Thanks!

Posted: Wed Oct 12, 2005 5:23 pm
by pickle
I don't have a solution, but I've had no good experience with Crystal Reports. I've heard nothing but bad about it too.

What kind of reporting do you need to do? It might not be that difficult to roll your own (although putting it into a PDF will be a bugbear)

Posted: Wed Oct 12, 2005 6:12 pm
by marianopeterson
pickle wrote:What kind of reporting do you need to do? It might not be that difficult to roll your own (although putting it into a PDF will be a bugbear)
I'm building a system that calls for numerous reports. It seems like a big time sink to keep generating one-off reports in PHP and HTML (or harder, PDF). This is compounded by the fact that the reports will probably change every so often (e.g., when a new look is desired for Account Statments or Inventory reports).

I'd like a report building mechanism that allows me (the developer) to quickly build reports (for data analysis or simple printing of invoices, account statements, etc). I'd also like it to be simple enough that advanced end users could use the tool to build their own reports, lowering technical maintenance and making the system output more flexible for them.

Reports would be designed on a desktop, probably using a desktop application. The tool would have an interface inspired by Access's report builder or Crystal Reports. The report designer would provide a query builder and format designer. Designs could be saved as report definition files.

The reporting tool would also need a "runtime engine" -- a command line tool that could read a report definition file, run the report based on arguments passed in via the command line, and save the formatted output to the filesystem.

Sample usage:

Code: Select all

> reportRunner --definition=myReport.definition --format=pdf --output=myOutput.pdf --param1=">30" --param2="John Doe"
This sort of a reporting tool could then be used by any programming environment that allows the developer to invoke programs via the command line (i.e., PHP, Perl, Python, Java, C++, Object C, ASP, etc.).

Posted: Wed Oct 12, 2005 6:21 pm
by marianopeterson
A friend just directed me to ReportMill:
http://www.reportmill.com/product/

I just started reading about it, but it looks promising so far.