# Generating reports in rails? Reinventing the wheel?

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/generating-reports-in-rails-reinventing-the-wheel/67269>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [September 1, 2006, 7:19pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/generating-reports-in-rails-reinventing-the-wheel/67269 "2006-09-01T19:19:09Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![benjohnson](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/3ec8ea/32.png) [@benjohnson](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/benjohnson)\
**Post date:** [September 1, 2006, 7:19pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/generating-reports-in-rails-reinventing-the-wheel/67269/1 "2006-09-01T19:19:09Z")

</div>

Is there a plugin or code somewhere that makes creating reports in rails  
easy?

Basically I just want to run reports based off of data in a database.  
What would be optimal, in my opinion, is a page where you could select 1  
or more database tables, select the columns for those tables, and then  
select the various actions you would like to perform on those columns.  
You hit submit and it creates tables and/or graphs based on your  
specifications.

I could do this, but it seems like it would be a decent amount of work,  
I would prefer not to reinvent the wheel here. So if anyone knows of  
anything similar please let me know.

Thanks a lot for your help.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![benjohnson](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/3ec8ea/32.png) [@benjohnson](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/benjohnson)\
**Post date:** [September 1, 2006, 7:39pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/generating-reports-in-rails-reinventing-the-wheel/67269/2 "2006-09-01T19:39:11Z")

</div>

it’s not quite what you’re looking for but check out ruport

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![benjohnson](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/3ec8ea/32.png) [@benjohnson](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/benjohnson)\
**Post date:** [September 1, 2006, 7:53pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/generating-reports-in-rails-reinventing-the-wheel/67269/3 "2006-09-01T19:53:13Z")

</div>

> Is there a plugin or code somewhere that makes creating  
> reports in rails easy?

You may want to try Ruby Reports. It’s not Rails code, but it’s the raw  
tools to do what you want.

[http://ruport.infogami.com/](http://ruport.infogami.com/)

Fromthe site:

Ruby Reports is a software library that aims to make the task of  
reporting less tedious and painful. It provides tools for data  
acquisition, database interaction, formatting, and parsing/munging.  
Designed to be extensible, it is possible to use Ruport for quick  
specific tasks as well as to build robust reporting applications.

- Mark.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![benjohnson](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/3ec8ea/32.png) [@benjohnson](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/benjohnson)\
**Post date:** [September 20, 2006, 2:59am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/generating-reports-in-rails-reinventing-the-wheel/67269/4 "2006-09-20T02:59:33Z")

</div>

Ben,

Saw your post on this topic, and I wonder what you decided to do. I’m  
an ex-reporting company guy thinking of creating an open-source project  
to do this kind of thing, but I’m not sure if there is demand in the  
Ruby & Rails space. (I was associated with the Eclipse BIRT project in  
the Java/J2EE space; where things are FAR more complex…)

Your note below is a good description of what I was thinking of  
supporting. Rather than do a whole complex UI for setting visual  
properties, I was thinking of relying on a set of style sheets that  
provide predefined formatting options. The solution would focus on web  
delivery, with the added complexity of print possibly coming later, if  
there is demand. Where possible, the project would get its metadata  
(formatting rules, display names, etc.) from Rails.

If such a project were available today, does this sound like something  
that would solve your problem?

Thanks,

```
- Paul
```

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![benjohnson](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/3ec8ea/32.png) [@benjohnson](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/benjohnson)\
**Post date:** [September 1, 2006, 9:05pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/generating-reports-in-rails-reinventing-the-wheel/67269/5 "2006-09-01T21:05:22Z")

</div>

How about: [http://www.openrpt.com/](http://www.openrpt.com/)

the only question is if RPTRender can be executed from command line.  
The output of this app is a PDF file which you could stream to the  
client. I haven’t had time to experiment with it yet, but will so by  
the end of the month…

Rafael

–  
[http://www.bdcsoftware.com](http://www.bdcsoftware.com)" - Automotive CRM