Re: Suggestion: Using SAX->XML->FOP for formatted printing

[Don W. <das...@ya...>]

Hi Jeff-

I have been developing my knowledge of XML, XSL,
XALAN, and FOP with respect to documentation.  It is
extremely easy to use perl to output XML, the
formatting to PDF could be done by just having the
perl call the command line version of FOP with an XSL
stylesheet.

Not only would this work for check printing.  It could
result in much prettier and better laid out invoices.

Alternatively, rather than having the perl scripts
output XML, and then make external command line.
Cocoon could be used and Java embedded in the
stylesheet using XSP (special language for embedding
code in Cocoon) to access the database, generate an
XML DOM object.  Then, that object would be formatted
using an XSL stylesheet to create formatted PDF. 
Cocoon can be integrated with Apache, so what would
happen is that PDF creation buttons point to a URL
that Cocoon handles.

If we really want to get pie in the sky, SQL Ledger
could be completely ported to Java, XML and Cocoon...

Regards,
Don




--- Jeff Kowalczyk <jt...@ad...> wrote:
> I came across this article today that would offer
> one possible path for
> SQL ledger to offer the formatted printing features
> that are currently
> being discussed.
> 
>
http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2001/09/19/sax-non-xml-data.html
> 
> I found it interesting because the subject discussed
> would be something
> that could be grafted on top of SQL ledger, rather
> than requiring large
> changes in the perl scripts themselves.
> 
> Specifically, the article introduces some techniques
> that can be used to
> output perl structures as XML. From there, we could
> leverage the FOP
> library to produce formatted PDF output. The current
> implementation of
> the FOP libarary is Java-based, but that may not be
> a permanent
> limitation.
> 
> There are a number of other benefits to having XML
> output of
> sql-ledger's perl variables, as one can imagine.
> 
> 


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