Practical Reporting with Ruby and Rails
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CYAN YELLOW MAGENTA BLACK PANTONE 123 C BOOKS FOR PROFESSIONALS BY PROFESSIONALS® THE EXPERT’S VOICE® IN OPEN SOURCE Companion eBook Author of Available Practical Ruby Gems Practical Reporting with Ruby and Rails Practical Dear Reader, Reporting 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 Practical 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 with Reporting with 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 Ruby 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 Ruby and Rails 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. and David Berube Create and present attractive reports, graphs, Rails and documents using Ruby on the Web, on the Companion eBook THE APRESS ROADMAP desktop, and on the server. Practical Ruby Gems Beginning Ruby Practical Reporting See last page for details with Ruby and Rails on $10 eBook version Beginning Rails Practical Rails Projects SOURCE CODE ONLINE Berube www.apress.com ISBN-13: 978-1-59059-933-4 ISBN-10: 1-59059-933-0 David Berube 5 4 2 9 9 US $42.99 Shelve in Programming Languages/ Ruby User level: 9 781590 599334 Intermediate 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 Ruby and Rails David Berube 9330FM.qxd 1/9/08 2:48 PM Page ii Practical Reporting with Ruby and Rails Copyright © 2008 by David Berube All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner and the publisher. ISBN-13 (pbk): 978-1-59059-933-4 ISBN-10 (pbk): 1-59059-933-0 ISBN-13 (electronic): 978-1-4302-0532-6 ISBN-10 (electronic): 1-4302-0532-6 Printed and bound in the United States of America 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Trademarked names may appear in this book. Rather than use a trademark symbol with every occurrence of a trademarked name, we use the names only in an editorial fashion and to the benefit of the trademark owner, with no intention of infringement of the trademark. Java™ and all Java-based marks are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc., in the US and other countries. Apress, Inc., is not affiliated with Sun Microsystems, Inc., and this book was written without endorsement from Sun Microsystems, Inc. Lead Editors: Steve Anglin, Jason Gilmore Technical Reviewer: Nick Plante Editorial Board: Clay Andres, Steve Anglin, Ewan Buckingham, Tony Campbell, Gary Cornell, Jonathan Gennick, Kevin Goff, Matthew Moodie, Joseph Ottinger, Jeffrey Pepper, Frank Pohlmann, Ben Renow-Clarke, Dominic Shakeshaft, Matt Wade, Tom Welsh Project Manager: Beth Christmas Copy Editor: Marilyn Smith Associate Production Director: Kari Brooks-Copony Production Editor: Liz Berry Compositor: Dina Quan Proofreader: April Eddy Indexer: Broccoli Information Management Artist: April Milne Cover Designer: Kurt Krames Manufacturing Director: Tom Debolski Distributed to the book trade worldwide by Springer-Verlag New York, Inc., 233 Spring Street, 6th Floor, New York, NY 10013. Phone 1-800-SPRINGER, fax 201-348-4505, e-mail [email protected], or visit http://www.springeronline.com. 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The source code for this book is available to readers at http://www.apress.com. 9330FM.qxd 1/9/08 2:48 PM Page iii This book is dedicated to my parents. 9330FM.qxd 1/9/08 2:48 PM Page iv 9330FM.qxd 1/9/08 2:48 PM Page v Contents at a Glance About the Author . xi About the Technical Reviewer . xiii Acknowledgments . xv Introduction . xvii PART 1 I I I Introducing Reporting with Ruby ICHAPTER 1 Data Access Fundamentals . 3 ICHAPTER 2 Calculating Statistics with Active Record . 19 ICHAPTER 3 Creating Graphs with Ruby. 33 ICHAPTER 4 Creating Reports on the Desktop . 51 ICHAPTER 5 Connecting Your Reports to the World . 75 PART 2 I I I Examples of Reporting with Ruby ICHAPTER 6 Tracking Auctions with eBay . 111 ICHAPTER 7 Tracking Expenditures with PayPal. 133 ICHAPTER 8 Creating Sales Performance Reports with SugarCRM . 155 ICHAPTER 9 Investment Tracking with Fidelity . 171 ICHAPTER 10 Calculating Costs by Analyzing Apache Web Logs. 189 ICHAPTER 11 Tracking the News with Google News . 215 ICHAPTER 12 Creating Reports with Ruby and Microsoft Office . 233 ICHAPTER 13 Tracking Your Ads with Google AdWords . 261 IINDEX . 285 v 9330FM.qxd 1/9/08 2:48 PM Page vi 9330FM.qxd 1/9/08 2:48 PM Page vii Contents About the Author . xi About the Technical Reviewer . xiii Acknowledgments . xv Introduction . xvii PART 1 I I I Introducing Reporting with Ruby ICHAPTER 1 Data Access Fundamentals . 3 Choosing a Database . 3 Using Active Record As a Database Access Library . 5 Calculating Player Salaries. 6 Calculating Player Wins . 11 Summary. 17 ICHAPTER 2 Calculating Statistics with Active Record. 19 Grouping and Aggregation . 19 Analyzing Data with Grouping and Aggregates . 22 Calculating Salary Distribution. 25 Calculating Drink/Win Distribution . 26 Summary. 31 ICHAPTER 3 Creating Graphs with Ruby. 33 Choosing a Graphing Utility . 33 Graphing Data . 37 Creating a Line Chart . 37 Creating a Line Chart . 45 Summary . 49 vii 9330FM.qxd 1/9/08 2:48 PM Page viii viii ICONTENTS ICHAPTER 4 Creating Reports on the Desktop . 51 Choosing a Desktop Format . 51 Exporting Data to Spreadsheets . 52 Generating an Excel Spreadsheet . 52 Creating a Spreadsheet Report . 53 Creating GUIs with Ruby. 60 Using FXRuby . 61 Graphing Team Performance on the Desktop. 63 Summary. 73 ICHAPTER 5 Connecting Your Reports to the World . 75 Choosing a Web Framework . 75 Live Intranet Web Reporting with Rails . 76 Setting Up the Database. 78 Creating the Models for the Web Report . 82 Creating the Controller for the Web Report . 85 Creating the View for the Web Report . 85 Examining the Web Report Application . 87 Graphical Reporting with Rails . 91 Creating the Controller for the Graphical Report . 92 Creating the Models for the Graphical Report. 95 Creating the View for the Graphical Report . 96 Examining the Graphical Reporting Application . 99 Summary. 107 PART 2 I I I Examples of Reporting with Ruby ICHAPTER 6 Tracking Auctions with eBay. ..