From: Daniel Berger <Daniel.Berger@...>
Date: 2005-08-12T03:28:33+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby report generation tool

James Edward Gray II wrote:

<snip>

> 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. :)