E-Book Overview
In less than 300 pages, the author skims the field of reporting with Ruby on Rails. Not meant as an authoritative reference nor a tutorial on the Ruby language nor Rails framework, David points to useful utilities and gems that let the developer deliver analyzed, summarized, processed data in many formats. For a great many applications, in the view of the users, the reports ARE the application, so getting the right format and right data presentation are essential. David briefly touches on the database fundamentals and then dives right into a set of practical and easily-understood examples using common data (eBay, PayPal, SugarCRM) and demonstrates how to create output in the most demanded formats: web pages, PDFs, graphs, and the office formats. With a topic so broad and a book of moderate size, David trades depth for breadth and does a great job of pointing out many Rails idioms and useful 3rd party tools. Disclaimer: David's an associate of mine and arranged for a review copy of the book.
E-Book Content
CYAN MAGENTA YELLOW BLACK PANTONE 123 C Books for professionals by professionals ® Author of Practical Ruby Gems Practical Reporting with Ruby and Rails Dear Reader, David Berube Companion eBook THE APRESS ROADMAP Practical Ruby Gems Beginning Ruby See last page for details on $10 eBook version Practical Reporting with Ruby and Rails Companion eBook Available Practical Reporting with Ruby and Rails Perhaps the most important skill any commercial Ruby programmer can have is to write reports for data from disparate data sources. Practical Reporting with Ruby and Rails will show you how to do just that, using concrete, real-life examples. In fact, this book covers three distinct concepts: how to load data from different sources, how to interpret the data, and how to present the data. You’ll find out how to load data from a wide range of sources in various formats, including web-based data sources like Google AdWords and eBay. I’ll show you how to analyze data to produce meaningful reports using a variety of techniques, from Active Record statistical functions to custom SQL. The examples include conducting SugarCRM sales campaigns, analyzing data from Apache web logs, and many other practical applications. Displaying the data visually can be the most important part. You’ll learn how to present data on the Web and on the desktop. I’ll cover graphing using Gruff, Scruffy, CSS Graphs Helper, and Markaby, along with easy ways to create text and HTML reports. The examples demonstrate how to display reports as Excel spreadsheets or deliver them as PDF files, as well as how to create a Windows desktop tool that downloads data from a Rails web application into a Microsoft Access database. That’s not all, though. This book also covers performance-enhancing techniques such as using Active Record Extensions, which let you import data at lightning speed, and rolling your own SQL statements to optimize slow queries. I hope you will enjoy learning about reporting as much as I enjoyed writing about it. The EXPERT’s VOIce ® in Open Source Practical Reporting with Ruby and Rails Create and present attractive reports, graphs, and documents using Ruby on the Web, on the desktop, and on the server. Beginning Rails Practical Rails Projects SOURCE CODE ONLINE ISBN-13: 978-1-59059-933-4 ISBN-10: 1-59059-933-0 54299 US $42.99 Berube www.apress.com David Berube Shelve in Programming Languages/ Ruby User level: Intermediate 9 781590 599334 this print for content only—size & color not accurate spine = 0.729" 312 page count 9330FM.qxd 1/9/08 2:48 PM Page i Practical Reporting with