A Report Generator for Database and Web Applications

作     者：Chen, Woei-Kae Tu, Pin-Ying 

作者机构：Natl Taipei Univ Technol Dept Comp Sci & Informat Engn Taipei Taiwan 

出 版 物：《IEICE TRANSACTIONS ON INFORMATION AND SYSTEMS》 (电子信息通信学会汇刊：信息与系统)

年 卷 期：2012年第E95D卷第9期

页      面：2265-2276页

核心收录：

学科分类：0809[工学-电子科学与技术（可授工学、理学学位）] 08[工学] 0835[工学-软件工程] 0812[工学-计算机科学与技术（可授工学、理学学位）] 

基　　金：National Science Council Ministry of Economic Affair, Taiwan [NSC 99-2220-E-027-005, MOEA 100-EC-17-A-02-S1-135] 

主　　题：report generation visual programming layout transformation report structure report formatting 

摘      要：Report generation is one of the most important tasks for database and e-commerce applications. Current report tools typically provide a set of predefined components that are used to specify report layout and format. However, available layout options are limited, and WYSIWYG formatting is not allowed. This paper proposes a four-phase report generation process to overcome these problems. The first phase retrieves source tables from the database. The second phase reorganizes the layout of the source tables by transferring the source tables into a set of new flat tables (in the first normal form). The third phase restructures the flat tables into a nested table (report) by specifying the report structure. The last phase formats the report with a WYSIWYG format editor supporting a number of formatting rules designed specifically for nested reports. Each phase of the proposed process supports visual programming, giving an easy-to-use user interface and allowing very flexible report layouts and formats. A visual end-user-programming tool. called TPS, is developed to demonstrate the proposed process and show that reports with sophisticated layouts can be created without writing low-level report generation programs.