S3XRC Mini-Tutorial

• S3XRC Recipes and Tutorials

Report Function for your Resource

The Idea

You have a module xxx and within it a resource yyy, which has a number of components. You're providing CRUD functions for the resource and its components using shn_rest_controller().

Now you want to provide a reporting function for this resource, where the user can select records using a search form and then generate a summary report that can be exported in various formats, among others XLS, PDF and SVG.

This tutorial shows you how this can be integrated in the REST interface of your resource.

Creating a Custom Method Handler

First of all, implement your reporting function as a custom method handler. Add this function to your model file and add it as a method to your resource, like:

def shn_xxx_yyy_report(r, **attr):

    # Report generating code goes here

s3xrc.model.set_method("xxx", "yyy", method="report", action=shn_xxx_yyy_report)

A custom method handler has to take two arguments:

• r is the respective S3Request object, which represents the current request
• attr is the same dict of named arguments that have been passed to shn_rest_controller

Once you have done this, you can invoke your method handler from the URL:

http://localhost:8000/eden/xxx/yyy/report

The advantage of this is that this even understands URLs like:

http://localhost:8000/eden/xxx/yyy/1/report
http://localhost:8000/eden/xxx/yyy/report?yyy.id=1,2,3
http://localhost:8000/eden/xxx/yyy/report?yyy.field1__like=abc

meaning, it already implements a RESTful API for your reporting function, e.g. does the parsing/validating of the URL for you, implements the full range of URL queries for your resource and so forth. Nothing you need to care about now.

Providing different Report Formats

As mentioned before, you want to provide the report in various formats. To know which format has been requested, use r.representation:

def shn_xxx_yyy_report(r, **attr):

    if r.representation == "html":
        # HTML report generating code goes here:
        # "output" gets a dict of variables to be passed to the view

        response.view = "xxx/yyy_report.html" # <== choose the view template

        return output # <== return the output to the view

    elif r.representation == "xls":
        # XLS report generating code goes here
        # "output" gets the XLS contents

        return output # <== return the output to the view

    elif r.representation == "pdf":
        # PDF report generating code goes here
        # "output" takes the PDF contents

        return output # <== return the output to the view

    elif r.representation == "svg":
        # SVG report generating code goes here
        # "output" takes the SVG as a string

        return output # <== return the output to the view

    else:
        # Unsupported format
        raise HTTP(501, body=s3xrc.ERROR.BAD_FORMAT)

s3xrc.model.set_method("xxx", "yyy", method="report", action=shn_xxx_yyy_report)

Now your method handler recognises the requested format as specified in the URL by either a filename extension or the format variable:

http://localhost:8000/eden/xxx/yyy/4/report.xls
http://localhost:8000/eden/xxx/yyy.pdf/6
http://localhost:8000/eden/xxx/yyy/report?format=svg

How to get at the data

Now, how can you find out which data have to be processed by your reporting function, and yet more important: how can you get at them?

r (the S3Request object) contains an interface to your resource as S3Resource object in: r.resource

And this is what you can use to access your data. Some examples:

def shn_xxx_yyy_report(r, **attr):

    resource = r.resource # <== Get the resource

    if r.representation == "html":

        rows = resource.records() # <== get all records

    elif r.representation == "xls":

        for record in resource: # <== interate through the records
            ...

    elif r.representation == "pdf":

        # Access components record-wise:
        for record in resource:
            component_set = resource(record, component="component_name")
            for component_record in component_set:
                ...

    elif r.representation == "svg":

        # Modifying the resource query before accessing records
        filter = resource.get_query()
        filter = filter & (db.xxx_yyy.field5 == "value")
        resource.build_query(filter = filter)

        # ...and then iterate through the records:
        for record in resource:
            ...

    else:
        # Unsupported format
        raise HTTP(501, body=s3xrc.ERROR.BAD_FORMAT)

s3xrc.model.set_method("xxx", "yyy", method="report", action=shn_xxx_yyy_report)

The sum of all values in a field…

The case: Your resource contains a "timestmp" field (type datetime) and a field "cost" (type double), and now the user shall select a time interval in aform, and your report function shall provide the sum of all "cost" for those records with a timestmp within the selected time interval.

Let's go:

First of all, we implement our method handler as before:

def shn_xxx_yyy_report(r, **attr):

    # Report generating code goes here

s3xrc.model.set_method("xxx", "yyy", method="report", action=shn_xxx_yyy_report)

Now we add the HTML representation:

def shn_xxx_yyy_report(r, **attr):

    if r.representation == "html":
        output = dict()
        return output

s3xrc.model.set_method("xxx", "yyy", method="report", action=shn_xxx_yyy_report)

...to be continued...