Practical Reporting with Ruby and Rails

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xvii

   PDF

2. Introducing Reporting with Ruby

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1

      PDF

   2. Data Access Fundamentals

      Pages 3-17

   3. Calculating Statistics with Active Record

      Pages 19-32

   4. Creating Graphs with Ruby

      Pages 33-49

   5. Creating Reports on the Desktop

      Pages 51-73

   6. Connecting Your Reports to the World

      Pages 75-108

3. Examples of Reporting with Ruby

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 109-109

      PDF

   2. Tracking Auctions with eBay

      Pages 111-131

   3. Tracking Expenditures with PayPal

      Pages 133-153

   4. Creating Sales Performance Reports with SugarCRM

      Pages 155-169

   5. Investment Tracking with Fidelity

      Pages 171-187

   6. Calculating Costs by Analyzing Apache Web Logs

      Pages 189-213

   7. Tracking the News with Google News

      Pages 215-232

   8. Creating Reports with Ruby and Microsoft Office

      Pages 233-260

   9. Tracking Your Ads with Google AdWords

      Pages 261-284

4. Back Matter

   Pages 285-293

   PDF

Business intelligence and real–time reporting mechanisms play a major role in any of today's forward–looking business plans. With many of these solutions being moved to the Web, the popular Rails framework and its underlying Ruby language are playing a major role alongside web services in building the reporting solutions of tomorrow.

Practical Reporting with Ruby and Rails is the first book to comprehensively introduce this popular framework, guiding readers through a wide–ranging array of features. Note this isn't a staid guide to generating traditional reports, but rather it shows you how the Ruby language and Rails framework can create truly compelling reporting services by plugging into popular third-party applications and services such as Google AdWords, UPS.com, iTunes, and SalesForce.com.

• Rack
• Ruby
• Web Services
• business intelligence
• functions
• language
• statistics
• web service

David Berube is a Ruby developer, trainer, author, and speaker. He's used both Ruby and Ruby on Rails for several years, starting in 2003 when he became a Ruby advocate after he wrote about the language for Dr Dobb's Journal. Prior to this, he worked professionally with PHP, Perl, C++, and Visual Basic. His professional accomplishments include creating the Ruby on Rails engine for CoolRuby.com, a site that tracks the latest Ruby developments, and working with ThoughtBot.com on the Rails engine that powers Sermo America's Top Doctor contest. Additionally, he has worked on several other Ruby projects, including the engine powering CyberKnowHow's BirdFluBreakingNews search engine, and he also created the Slueshi text adventure game system, a multiplayer text game engine written in Ruby. David's journalism has been in print in over 65 countries, in magazines such as Linux Magazine, Dr Dobb's Journal, and PHP International Magazine. He's also taught college courses and spoken publicly on topics such as "MySQL and You" and "Making Money with Open Source Software." He lives in New Hampshire and his hobbies include basketball, yo-yos, and sleep.