Re: FOSS Reporting tools (was Oracle 10g Express - any danger for Postgres?)

----Original Message----
From: Trent Shipley [mailto:tshipley@deru.com]
Sent: Wednesday, November 02, 2005 7:27 PM
To: pgsql-general@postgresql.org
Subject: [GENERAL] FOSS Reporting tools (was Oracle 10g
Express - any danger for Postgres?)

> On Wednesday 2005-11-02 13:11, Jim C. Nasby wrote:
> > On Wed, Nov 02, 2005 at 01:25:31PM -0600, James
> > Thompson wrote:
> > > > Yes, sqlplus looks especially bad once you're used
> > > > to banging around in psql.  Although, I recently
> > > > discovered rlwrap (a generic readline wrapper)
> > > > which makes sqlplus almost tolerable.  It's the
> > > > best thing to happen to sqlplus since... well,
> > > > since "quit" I suppose.
> > >
> > > I just wish pgsql had something similar to sqlplus's
> > > built in formatting tools for output.  Being able to
> > > set titles, row lengths, and breaks made sqlplus a
> > > very nice reporting tool.  A rather large majority of
> > > "reports" at my old job consisted of sqlplus commands
> > > to set the format output, and a sql statement
> > > redirected to our line printer.
> > >
> > > I haven't used Oracle since the mid 90s so I don't
> > > have a working example but a description of some of
> > > the commands can be found here
> > >
> > > http://www.siue.edu/~dbock/cmis564/otext3.htm
> >
> > Given the choice, I'd *MUCH* rather have a good,
> > easy-to-use CLI than a reporting tool. I'm not a GUI
> > person, so I always hate working with Oracle and MSSQL
> > in that regard. Of course db2's CLI is just horrid, but
> > luckily it's easy to just substitute your shell for
> > it's editing features, ie:
> >
> > db2 'select * from table'
> > db2 'update ...'
> >
> > Believe it or not it very quickly becomes second nature
> > to wrap everything in db2 '', so it's not nearly as bad
> > as you'd think.
> >
> > In any case, how much user demand is there for a
> > reporting tool for PostgreSQL? Either a seperate tool
> > or better functionality in psql. My guess is that this
> > isn't something that interests most of the developers,
> > so the only way it's going to happen is if a lot of
> > users speak up and ask for it. Of course speaking up
> > with patches is far better.
>
> I never really used SQL*Plus as a command line tool.  I
> tended to use it as a weak SQL scripting language.
>
> Granted report generators can't be part of core
> PostgreSQL, they are still a critical part of any
> database workshop.
>
> ===========
>
> A) Are there any FOSS SQL scripting tools that output
> data ready for reporting (like SQR, but better)?
>
> B) Are there any FOSS tools that will take data and build
> pretty output.
>
> C) Are there any FOSS tools of type B that will take
> streaming input from some tool of type A.
>
> D) Are there any FOSS tools that combine both A and B
> into one low learning curve package like Crystal Reports.
>
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add datavision and agata to the already mentioned

agata http://www.agata.org.br/us/ Agata Report is a cross-platform
database reporting tool with graph generation and a query tool that
allows you to get data from PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQLite, Oracle, DB2,
MS-SQL, Informix, InterBase, Sybase, or Frontbase and export that data
as PostScript, plain text, HTML, XML, PDF, or spreadsheet (CSV) formats
through its graphical interface. You can also define levels, subtotals,
and a grand total for the report, merge the data into a document,
generate address labels, or even generate a complete ER-diagram from
your database.

http://datavision.sourceforge.net/ DataVision is an Open Source
reporting tool similar to Crystal Reports. Reports can be designed using
a drag-and-drop GUI. They may be run, viewed, and printed from the
application or exported as HTML, XML, PDF, LaTeX2e, DocBook, or tab- or
comma-delimited text files. The output files produced by LaTeX2e and
DocBook can in turn be used to produce PDF, text, HTML, PostScript, and
more.

DataVision is written in Java and runs almost anywhere. It can generate
reports from databases or text data files. Any database with an
available JDBC driver should work: Oracle, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Informix,
hsqldb, Microsoft Access, Progress, and more. Columns read from text
files can be separated by any character.

Report descriptions are stored as XML files. This means you can not only
use the DataVision GUI but you may also edit reports using your favorite
text editor.

reid