August 15, 2003 at 11:58 am
Is anyone out there generating XML for to report on the data in your database?
My thought is, if I can get XML out of my database as a report, I can use XSLT to:
- Generate a web page from the XML (web based reporting)
- Generate a PDF document using FO (formatting objects?)
- Generate a delimited file
- Possibly create an Excel worksheet (Anyone done this?)
This way, with one XML based report, I can deliver in any format I want to satisfy diverse business partner reporting needs.
I would appreciate comments from anyone out there doing something similar. If there are good tools out there, I would really appreciate the help.
Thanks,
Luke Embree
Sr. DBA
Ecount, Inc
August 17, 2003 at 7:16 pm
Hi there
Check out "SQLXML", when you install ss2k, go to you program group and see "Configure SQL XML Support for SQL Server". This is a very fast and effective way to build web services direct from the DB, or have URL based queries/templates that execute SQL/SP's on the server, return XML and optionally render the output via style sheets.
The SQL XML support is a wrapper ISAPI that you hook into a specific virtual directory. The ISAPI and associated GUI for managing the virtual directory (you dont use IIS, you use an extension to it), has all the smarts for hooking leavering off the SQLXML provider along with SOAP extension etc. The examples are very thorough and will provide you will all the help you need.
One warning though - appar SQLXML IIS extensions are NOT supports in Win2003. Also, dont use URL based queries unless you trap for SQL Injection attacks. Finally, where possible connect via a restricted user to specific stored procs/views only and parse all parameters.
Cheers
Ck
Chris Kempster
Author of "SQL Server 2k for the Oracle DBA"
Chris Kempster
www.chriskempster.com
Author of "SQL Server Backup, Recovery & Troubleshooting"
Author of "SQL Server 2k for the Oracle DBA"
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