# report(3tcl) 0.3.2 report "Matrix reports"

## Name

report - Create and manipulate report objects

## Synopsis

- package require Tcl 8.2
- package require report ?0.3.2?

- ::report::report reportName columns ?style style arg...?
- reportName option ?arg arg ...?
- ::report::defstyle styleName arguments script
- ::report::rmstyle styleName
- ::report::stylearguments styleName
- ::report::stylebody styleName
- ::report::styles
- reportName destroy
- reportName templatecode disable|enable
- reportName templatecode enabled
- reportName templatecode get
- reportName templatecode set templatedata
- reportName tcaption ?size?
- reportName bcaption size
- reportName size column ?number|dyn?
- reportName sizes ?size-list?
- reportName pad column ?left|right|both ?padstring??
- reportName justify column ?left|right|center?
- reportName printmatrix matrix
- reportName printmatrix2channel matrix chan
- reportName columns

## Description

This package provides report objects which can be used by the formatting methods of matrix objects to generate tabular reports of the matrix in various forms. The report objects defined here break each report down into three REGIONS and ten classes of lines (various separator- and data-lines). See the following section for more detailed explanations.

::report::report reportName columns ?style style arg...?

  Creates a new report object for a report having columns columns with an associated global Tcl command whose name is reportName. This command may be used to invoke various configuration operations on the report. It has the following general form:

  reportName option ?arg arg ...?

    Option and the args determine the exact behavior of the command. See section REPORT METHODS for more explanations. If no style is specified the report will use the builtin style plain as its default configuration.

::report::defstyle styleName arguments script

  Defines the new style styleName. See section STYLES for more information.

::report::rmstyle styleName

  Deletes the style styleName. Trying to delete an unknown or builtin style will result in an error. Beware, this command will not check that there are no other styles depending on the deleted one. Deleting a style which is still used by another style FOO will result in a runtime error when FOO is applied to a newly instantiated report.

::report::stylearguments styleName

  This introspection command returns the list of arguments associated with the style styleName.

::report::stylebody styleName

  This introspection command returns the script associated with the style styleName.

::report::styles

  This introspection command returns a list containing the names of all styles known to the package at the time of the call. The order of the names in the list reflects the order in which the styles were created. In other words, the first item is the predefined style plain, followed by the first style defined by the user, and so on.

## REGIONS

The three regions are the top caption, data area and bottom caption. These are, roughly speaking, the title, the values to report and a title at the bottom. The size of the caption regions can be specified by the user as the number of rows they occupy in the matrix to format. The size of the data area is specified implicitly.

## LINES

TEMPLATES are associated with each of the ten line classes, defining the formatting for this kind of line. The user is able to enable and disable the separator lines at will, but not the data lines. Their usage is solely determined by the number of rows contained in the three regions. Data lines and all enabled separators must have a template associated with them.

Note that the data-lines in a report and the rows in the matrix the report was generated from are not in a 1:1 relationship if any row in the matrix has a height greater than one.

The different kinds of lines and the codes used by the report methods to address them are:

top

  The topmost line of a report. Separates the report from anything which came before it. The user can enable the usage of this line at will.

topdatasep

  This line is used to separate the data rows in the top caption region, if it contains more than one row and the user enabled its usage.

topcapsep

  This line is used to separate the top caption and data regions, if the top caption is not empty and the user enabled its usage.

datasep

  This line is used to separate the data rows in the data region, if it contains more than one row and the user enabled its usage.

botcapsep

  This line is used to separate the data and bottom caption regions, if the bottom caption is not empty and the user enabled its usage.

botdatasep

  This line is used to separate the data rows in the bottom caption region, if it contains more than one row and the user enabled its usage.

bottom

  The bottommost line of a report. Separates the report from anything which comes after it. The user can enable the usage of this line at will.

topdata

  This line defines the format of data lines in the top caption region of the report.

data

  This line defines the format of data lines in the data region of the report.

botdata

  This line defines the format of data lines in the bottom caption region of the report.

## TEMPLATES

Each template is a list of strings used to format the line it is associated with. For a report containing n columns a template for a data line has to contain "n+1" items and a template for a separator line "2*n+1" items.

The items in a data template specify the strings used to separate the column information. Together with the corresponding items in the separator templates they form the vertical lines in the report.

Note that the corresponding items in all defined templates have to be of equal length. This will be checked by the report object. The first item defines the leftmost vertical line and the last item defines the rightmost vertical line. The item at index k ("1",...,"n-2") separates the information in the columns "k-1" and "k".

The items in a separator template having an even-numbered index ("0","2",...) specify the column separators. The item at index "2*k" ("0","2",...,"2*n") corresponds to the items at index "k" in the data templates.

The items in a separator template having an odd-numbered index ("1","3",...) specify the strings used to form the horizontal lines in the separator lines. The item at index "2*k+1" ("1","3",...,"2*n+1") corresponds to column "k". When generating the horizontal lines the items are replicated to be at least as long as the size of their column and then cut to the exact size.

## STYLES

Styles are a way for the user of this package to define common configurations for report objects and then use them later during the actual instantiation of report objects. They are defined as tcl scripts which when executed configure the report object into the requested configuration.

The command to define styles is ::report::defstyle. Its last argument is the tcl script performing the actual reconfiguration of the report object to obtain the requested style.

In this script the names of all previously defined styles are available as commands, as are all commands found in a safe interpreter and the configuration methods of report objects. The latter implicitly operate on the object currently executing the style script. The arguments declared here are available in the script as variables. When calling the command of a previously declared style all the arguments expected by it have to be defined in the call.

## REPORT METHODS

The following commands are possible for report objects:

reportName destroy

  Destroys the report, including its storage space and associated command.

reportName templatecode disable|enable

  Enables or disables the usage of the template addressed by the templatecode. Only the codes for separator lines are allowed here. It is not possible to enable or disable data lines.

  Enabling a template causes the report to check all used templates for inconsistencies in the definition of the vertical lines (See section TEMPLATES).

reportName templatecode enabled

  Returns the whether the template addressed by the templatecode is currently enabled or not.

reportName templatecode get

  Returns the template currently associated with the kind of line addressed by the templatecode. All known templatecodes are allowed here.

reportName templatecode set templatedata

  Sets the template associated with the kind of line addressed by the templatecode to the new value in templatedata. See section TEMPLATES for constraints on the length of templates.

reportName tcaption ?size?

  Specifies the size of the top caption region as the number rows it occupies in the matrix to be formatted. Only numbers greater than or equal to zero are allowed. If no size is specified the command will return the current size instead.

  Setting the size of the top caption to a value greater than zero enables the corresponding data template and causes the report to check all used templates for inconsistencies in the definition of the vertical lines (See section TEMPLATES).

reportName bcaption size

  Specifies the size of the bottom caption region as the number rows it occupies in the matrix to be formatted. Only numbers greater than or equal to zero are allowed. If no size is specified the command will return the current size instead.

  Setting the size of the bottom caption to a value greater than zero enables the corresponding data template and causes the report to check all used templates for inconsistencies in the definition of the vertical lines (See section TEMPLATES).

reportName size column ?number|dyn?

  Specifies the size of the column in the output. The value dyn means that the columnwidth returned by the matrix to be formatted for the specified column shall be used. The formatting of the column is dynamic. If a fixed number is used instead of dyn it means that the column has a width of that many characters (padding excluded). Only numbers greater than zero are allowed here.

  If no size specification is given the command will return the current size of the column instead.

reportName sizes ?size-list?

  This method allows the user to specify the sizes of all columns in one call. Its argument is a list containing the sizes to associate with the columns. The first item is associated with column 0, the next with column 1, and so on.

  If no size-list is specified the command will return a list containing the currently set sizes instead.

reportName pad column ?left|right|both ?padstring??

  This method allows the user to specify padding on the left, right or both sides of a column. If the padstring is not specified it defaults to a single space character. Note: An alternative way of specifying the padding is to use vertical separator strings longer than one character in the templates (See section TEMPLATES).

  If no pad specification is given at all the command will return the current state of padding for the column instead. This will be a list containing two elements, the first element the left padding, the second describing the right padding.

reportName justify column ?left|right|center?

  Declares how the cell values for a column are filled into the report given the specified size of a column in the report.

  For left and right justification a cell value shorter than the width of the column is bound with its named edge to the same edge of the column. The other side is filled with spaces. In the case of center the spaces are placed to both sides of the value and the left number of spaces is at most one higher than the right number of spaces.

  For a value longer than the width of the column the value is cut at the named edge. This means for left justification that the tail (i.e. the right part) of the value is made visible in the output. For center the value is cut at both sides to fit into the column and the number of characters cut at the left side of the value is at most one less than the number of characters cut from the right side.

  If no justification was specified the command will return the current justification for the column instead.

reportName printmatrix matrix

  Formats the matrix according to the configuration of the report and returns the resulting string. The matrix has to have the same number of columns as the report. The matrix also has to have enough rows so that the top and bottom caption regions do not overlap. The data region is allowed to be empty.

reportName printmatrix2channel matrix chan

  Formats the matrix according to the configuration of the report and writes the result into the channel chan. The matrix has to have the same number of columns as the report. The matrix also has to have enough rows so that the top and bottom caption regions do not overlap. The data region is allowed to be empty.

reportName columns

  Returns the number of columns in the report.

The methods size, pad and justify all take a column index as their first argument. This index is allowed to use all the forms of an index as accepted by the lindex command. The allowed range for indices is "0,...,[reportName columns]-1".

## EXAMPLES

Our examples define some generally useful report styles.

A simple table with lines surrounding all information and vertical separators, but without internal horizontal separators.

        ::report::defstyle simpletable {} {
    	data	set [split "[string repeat "| "   [columns]]|"]
    	top	set [split "[string repeat "+ - " [columns]]+"]
    	bottom	set [top get]
    	top	enable
    	bottom	enable
        }

An extension of a simpletable, see above, with a title area.

        ::report::defstyle captionedtable {{n 1}} {
    	simpletable
    	topdata   set [data get]
    	topcapsep set [top get]
    	topcapsep enable
    	tcaption $n
        }

Given the definitions above now an example which actually formats a matrix into a tabular report. It assumes that the matrix actually contains useful data.

        % ::struct::matrix m
        % # ... fill m with data, assume 5 columns
        % ::report::report r 5 style captionedtable 1
        % r printmatrix m
        +---+-------------------+-------+-------+--------+
        |000|VERSIONS:          |2:8.4a3|1:8.4a3|1:8.4a3%|
        +---+-------------------+-------+-------+--------+
        |001|CATCH return ok    |7      |13     |53.85   |
        |002|CATCH return error |68     |91     |74.73   |
        |003|CATCH no catch used|7      |14     |50.00   |
        |004|IF if true numeric |12     |33     |36.36   |
        |005|IF elseif          |15     |47     |31.91   |
        |   |true numeric       |       |       |        |
        +---+-------------------+-------+-------+--------+
        %
        % # alternate way of doing the above
        % m format 2string r

## Bugs, Ideas, Feedback

This document, and the package it describes, will undoubtedly contain bugs and other problems. Please report such in the category report of the Tcllib Trackers. Please also report any ideas for enhancements you may have for either package and/or documentation.

When proposing code changes, please provide unified diffs, i.e the output of diff -u.

Note further that attachments are strongly preferred over inlined patches. Attachments can be made by going to the Edit form of the ticket immediately after its creation, and then using the left-most button in the secondary navigation bar.

## Keywords

matrix, report, table

## Category

Data structures

## Copyright

Copyright © 2002-2014 Andreas Kupries <andreas_kupries@users.sourceforge.net>