Re: Oracle Report Builder vs MS Excel

i'm not a fan of reports -- i'd much rather use PL/SQL to generate HTML or XML and use XSL-FO/FOP to generate PDFs

however, if there is a mandate to use reports, 9i does a pretty good job of generating HTML, PDF, XML, and CSV output to the browser, all from the same report definition

i wasn't thinking of using TEXT_IO to output CSV, it doesn't really make a lot of sense to use that in Reports anyways -- it's a much more straight-forward use of the tool to use the DESTYPE and DESFORMAT parameters to control the output from the report engine, rather than code TEXT_IO calls (that approach would be more appropriate in Forms and just forget about Reports altogether) -- but of course, as you indicate TEXT_IO is dead with client-server anyway

 using Reports as a report writer (not a programming environment) and outputting to the web by setting it standard parameters is the more reasonable way to use the tool

it's not perfect, but we got it working fairly well. i don't recall, though, if we were able to set the the Content-disposition HTTP header, or if we just had to let the CSV output to the browser and have the user do a Save-As, or if we did get excel to invoke automatically in the browser (i think we did get the latter working)

[Quoted] i see a few things in my notes about the parameters DESFORMAT=DELIMITED being used in conjunction with MIMETYPE=APPLICATION/VND.MS-EXCEL -- plus a reference to bug 2411483 and a problem with DELIMITED_HDR=NO -- but the issues may have been limited to 6i, not 9i

i'll post more if i get a chance to dig thru the archives

• mcs

"Daniel Morgan" <damorgan_at_x.washington.edu> wrote in message news:1069107672.565088_at_yasure...
| mcstock wrote:
|
| > we've done this in 9i more successfully than with 6i, but it's been a
few
| > months
| >
| > i won't get a chance to dig out my references till later this week --
i'll
| > find them and post the exact technique later this week
| >
| > "Daniel Morgan" <damorgan_at_x.washington.edu> wrote in message
| > news:1069105039.298940_at_yasure...
| > | Stefan Leugers wrote:
| > |
| > | > The easiest way to make Excel-Output is to generate a text file with
| > comma
| > | > separated values with textio-Package. The more diffcult way with
more
| > | > possibilities ist to use the OLE2-Package.
| > | > Greetings,
| > | > Stefan
| > | >
| > | > Juchny wrote:
| > | >
| > | >
| > | >>I have a problem with importing Reports from oracle report builder
into
| > | >>excel. I've tried copy and paste in to excel of html report but it
makes
| > | >>cell's of the report biger then the rest of them. I've tried
generating
| > a
| > | >>delimited txt file and importing it into excel but in only works for
| > matrix
| > | >>reports. Is there any easy way for end users to import others
reports
| > into
| > | >>MS Excel and make them look "normal"?
| > | >>
| > | >>Thanks for any Help
| > | >>
| > | >>Juchny
| > |
| > | Assuming Reports 6i. You won't be doing this in 9i. Unfortunately
| > | the OP didn't include version information. UTL_FILE would be a far
| > | more generic solution.
| > | --
| > | Daniel Morgan
| > | http://www.outreach.washington.edu/ext/certificates/oad/oad_crs.asp
| > | http://www.outreach.washington.edu/ext/certificates/aoa/aoa_crs.asp
| > | damorgan_at_x.washington.edu
| > | (replace 'x' with a 'u' to reply)
| > |
|
| Prehaps I'm wrong but I thought TextIO was dropped from 9i because it is
| a web implementation.
| --
| Daniel Morgan
| http://www.outreach.washington.edu/ext/certificates/oad/oad_crs.asp
| http://www.outreach.washington.edu/ext/certificates/aoa/aoa_crs.asp
| damorgan_at_x.washington.edu
| (replace 'x' with a 'u' to reply)
|
Received on Tue Nov 18 2003 - 03:48:08 CET