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RFC: Catalyst::View::Download

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travis at ti4tech

Mar 5, 2008, 10:34 AM

Post #1 of 3 (342 views)
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RFC: Catalyst::View::Download

A refined focus of what Catalyst::View::CSV was to be apart of. Note:
Catalyst::View::CSV will move forward, it is instead a part of this package
as Catalyst::View::Download::CSV. Also note, I intend to add more
downloadable formats besides the simple ones (CSV, Plain) I have listed.

- Travis

=head1 NAME

Catalyst::View::Download

=head1 VERSION

Version 0.01

=head1 SYNOPSIS

# lib/MyApp/View/Download.pm
package MyApp::View::Download;
use base qw( Catalyst::View::Download );
1;

# lib/MyApp/Controller/SomeController.pm
sub example_action_1 : Local {
my ($self, $c) = @_;

my $content_type = $c->request->params->{'content_type'} || 'plain';
# 'plain' or 'csv'

$c->header('Content-Type' => 'text/'.$content_type); # Set the
content type so Catalyst::View::Download can determine how to process it.

# Array reference of array references.
my $data = [
['col 1','col 2','col ...','col N'], # row 1
['col 1','col 2','col ...','col N'], # row 2
['col 1','col 2','col ...','col N'], # row ...
['col 1','col 2','col ...','col N'] # row N
];

# If the chosen content_type is 'csv' then the render function of
Catalyst::View::Download::CSV will be called which uses the 'csv' stash key
$c->stash->{'csv'} = $data;

# For plain text in this example we just dump the example array
# Catalyst::View::Download::Plain will use either the 'plain' stash
key or just pull from $c->response->body
use Data::Dumper;
$c->response->body( Dumper( $data ) )

# Finally forward processing to the Download View
$c->forward('MyApp::View::Download');
}

=head1 SUBROUTINES

=head2 process

This method will be called by Catalyst if it is asked to forward to a
component without a specified action.

=head2 render

Allows others to use this view for much more fine-grained content
generation.

=head1 CONFIG

=over 4

=item default

Determines which Content-Type to use by default. Default: 'text/plain'

$c->view('MyApp::View::Download')->config('default' => 'text/plain');

=item content_type

A hash ref of hash refs. Each key in content_type is Content-Type that is
handled by this view.

$c->view('MyApp::View::Download')->config->{'content_type'}{'text/csv'}
= {
'outfile' => 'somefile.csv',
'module' => 'My::Module'
};

The Content-Type key refers to it's own hash of parameters to determine the
actions thie view should take for that Content-Type.

'outfile' - The name and extenstion of the file that will display by default
in the download dialog box.

'module' - The name of the module that will handle data output. If there is
a plus symbol '+' at the beginning of the module name, this will indicate
that the module is a Catalyst::View module will will add 'Catalyst::View::'
to the beginning of the module name.

$c->view('MyApp::View::Download')->config->{'content_type'}{'text/csv'}{'module'}
= '+Download::CSV'; # Module Loaded: Catalyst::View::Download::CSV

$c->view('MyApp::View::Download')->config->{'content_type'}{'text/csv'}{'module'}
= 'My::Module::CSV'; # Module Loaded: My::Module::CSV

=back

=head1 Content-Type Module Requirements

Any module set as 'the' module for a certain Content-Type needs to have a
subroutine named 'render' that returns the content to output with the
following parameters handled.

=over 4

=item $c

The catalyst $c variable

=item $template

In case a template file is needed for the module. This view will pass
$c->stash->{template} as this value.

=item $args

A list of arguments the module will use to process the data into content.
This view will pass $c->stash as this value.

=back

=head1 CURRENT CONTENT-TYPES SUPPORTED

=head2 text/csv

Catalyst::View::Download has the following default configuration for this
Content-Type

$c->view('MyApp::View::Download')->config->{'content_type'}{'text/csv'}
= {
'outfile' => 'data.csv',
'module' => '+Download::CSV'
};

See L<Catalyst::View::Download::CSV> for more details.

=head2 text/plain

Catalyst::View::Download has the following default configuration for this
Content-Type

$c->view('MyApp::View::Download')->config->{'default'} = 'text/plain';

$c->view('MyApp::View::Download')->config->{'content_type'}{'text/csv'}
= {
'outfile' => 'data.csv',
'module' => '+Download::CSV'
};

See L<Catalyst::View::Download::Plain> for more details.

=head1 AUTHOR

Travis Chase, C<< <gaudeon at cpan.org> >>

=head1 BUGS

Please report any bugs or feature requests to C<bug-catalyst-view-download
at rt.cpan.org>, or through
the web interface at L<
http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/ReportBug.html?Queue=Catalyst-View-Download>. I
will be notified, and then you'll
automatically be notified of progress on your bug as I make changes.

=head1 SUPPORT

You can find documentation for this module with the perldoc command.

perldoc Catalyst::View::Download

You can also look for information at:

=over 4

=item * RT: CPAN's request tracker

L<http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/Bugs.html?Dist=Catalyst-View-Download>

=item * AnnoCPAN: Annotated CPAN documentation

L<http://annocpan.org/dist/Catalyst-View-Download>

=item * CPAN Ratings

L<http://cpanratings.perl.org/d/Catalyst-View-Download>

=item * Search CPAN

L<http://search.cpan.org/dist/Catalyst-View-Download>

=back

=head1 SEE ALSO

L<Catalyst> L<Catalyst::View>

=head1 CONTRIBUTORS

=head1 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks to following people for their constructive comments and help:

=over 4

=item J. Shirley

=item Jonathan Rockway

=back

Thanks also to my company Ti4 Technologies for their financial support. L<
http://www.ti4tech.com/>

=head1 COPYRIGHT & LICENSE

Copyright 2008 Travis Chase, all rights reserved.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
under the same terms as Perl itself.

=cut

jon+catalyst at youramigo

Mar 5, 2008, 3:57 PM

Post #2 of 3 (329 views)
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Re: RFC: Catalyst::View::Download [In reply to]

On Wed, 2008-03-05 at 11:34 -0700, Travis Chase wrote:
> A refined focus of what Catalyst::View::CSV was to be apart of. Note:
> Catalyst::View::CSV will move forward, it is instead a part of this
> package as Catalyst::View::Download::CSV. Also note, I intend to add
> more downloadable formats besides the simple ones (CSV, Plain) I have
> listed.
>

Travis,

I have implemented something similar locally, being a wrapper around
Text::Table, Text::CSV_XS and Spreadsheet::WriteExcel to support text,
csv and excel respectively. There are other wrappers on CPAN which I
reviewed at the time but I found them to either have bugs w.r.t.
functionality I needed, or to do things in a way which were cumbersome
w.r.t. my requirements, or to not support the cross-section of formats
needed. In any case it's not much extra code. I'm not making any great
claims about my implementation, just trying to provide food for thought.

I found it useful to support multiple worksheets (as in the spreadsheet
concept), and to provide for metadata (title, sheet name, column
headers, notes) as well as the data itself. The API works something
like this:

use Local::Tabular;

my @reports = (
{
title => "Top 10 Wines, by Region",
sheetname => "Top Wines",
headers => [ "Region", "Name", "No of. Top 10 Results" ],
data => \@data,
},
{ add more worksheets here in similar vein ... },
);
my $output = Local::Tabular->new(format => ’txt’, outfile => $file);
$output->print(\@reports);
$output->close();

The Catalyst view is then a wrapper around the above, where @reports is
placed in the stash as you have done with $c->stash->{'csv'}.

(Note that if you end up using Spreadsheet::WriteExcel, all UTF8 strings
need to be encoded as bytes first.)

Another handy feature is to be able to specify data either row-wise or
column-wise.

Regards,

--
Jon Schutz My tech notes http://notes.jschutz.net
Chief Technology Officer http://www.youramigo.com
YourAmigo

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jon at jrock

Mar 6, 2008, 2:59 PM

Post #3 of 3 (330 views)
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Re: RFC: Catalyst::View::Download [In reply to]

* On Wed, Mar 05 2008, Travis Chase wrote:

> =head1 SUPPORT
>
> You can find documentation for this module with the perldoc command.
>
> perldoc Catalyst::View::Download
>
> You can also look for information at:
>
> =over 4
>
> =item * RT: CPAN's request tracker
>
> L<http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/Bugs.html?Dist=Catalyst-View-Download>
>
> =item * AnnoCPAN: Annotated CPAN documentation
>
> L<http://annocpan.org/dist/Catalyst-View-Download>
>
> =item * CPAN Ratings
>
> L<http://cpanratings.perl.org/d/Catalyst-View-Download>
>
> =item * Search CPAN
>
> L<http://search.cpan.org/dist/Catalyst-View-Download>
>
> =back

BTW, you might prefer CatalystX::Starter to Module::Starter. It's much
more convenient for starting Catalyst components (although I use it for
everything), and it's generally more sane.

Regards,
Jonathan Rockway

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