[hobbit] Report in Excel format

[Jeff Stoner]

On Tue, 2005-01-18 at 09:20 +0100, Henrik Stoerner wrote:
> I've had some requests for generating reports in CSV (comma-separated
> values) format. That is one option; a more flexible solution would be
> to export the report data in an XML format - since everybody seems to
> be adopting XML as a universal data exchange format, I think that
> would make the most sense.

Suggestion: make it modular! There are hundreds, possibly thousands, of
formats out there. Do The Right Thing (tm) and simply make an API so
others can tack on a report writer that outputs their favorite format.
That way, you're not pulling your hair out trying to keep up with format
changes, requests for new formats and such. Provide a basic report
writer to get people started (to pull data out as an an example of
writing a report writer). A text-delimited writer would be ideal, then
people can output a comma/tab/pipe/slash/carrot/whatever delimited ASCII
file to get started.

Others can then add more, like an OpenOffice.org writer, GNUPlot,
Postscript, PDF, HP OpenView, GNUCash (why not) or whatever their hearts
desire 


-- 
--Jeff

AIM/Yahoo: D0wnsp0ut