How it Works: Runtime
The report file and name=value styled parameters are the command line parameters.
$ ere.pl myreport date=11/16/2003 debug=1
ere looks for the named report in the current or specified directory with
with an .xml or .ere. suffix. Arguments other than the report name are all
in name=value form. There are a set of built-in arguments
and the developer of the report may require others.
ere opens the report and parses it.
Then it runs the query or queries and populates the report according
to the template specifications.
The output of the report goes to STDOUT. Optionally
a debug and/or a csv (comma separated value) file are created
during the run of the report. See Built-in Arguments
for how to specify the locations of the debug and csv files.
You may also want to wrap ere into a shell script which manages where
output files are directed and prompts users for report specific variables. A
sample shell script called runre is included.
ere is easy to invoke from web applications
to run dynamic reports. There is a sample application called
rerun available to drive your reports
prompting and execution based on PostgreSQL
tables.
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