note
roboticus
<p>I'll have to chime in with [temporal]: I think that CPAN is the best initial draw. The capabilities of the language help make it stay great.</p>
<p>The example I usually use to "hook" people with perl is a stripped down version of my SQL_2_excel script. The stripped down version isn't fancy, but shows how easily you can get data from a database and into a spreadsheet:</p>
<c>
#!/usr/bin/perl
#
# Create a spreadsheet from an SQL query.
#
use strict;
use warnings;
use DBI;
use Spreadsheet::WriteExcel;
my $DSN = shift;
my $usr = shift;
my $pwd = shift or die "Missing argument(s)!";
# Attach to database and run query
my $DB=DBI->connect($DSN,$usr,$pwd);
my $ST=$DB->prepare(<<EOSQL);
select MID, DBA, LastName, FirstName
from customers
where balance_due > 100
EOSQL
$ST->execute;
# Create a new workbook and worksheet
my $xWB = Spreadsheet::WriteExcel->new('MySpreadsheet.xls');
my $xWS = $xWB->add_worksheet("Results");
# Add column headers (use column headers from query results)
my $R=0; my $C=0;
$xWS->write($R, $C++, $_) for @{$ST->{NAME}};
# Read the query results and write them into the spreadsheet
while (my $ar=$ST->fetchrow_arrayref) {
++$R; $C=0;
$xWS->write($R, $C++, $_) for @$ar;
}
</c>
<p>It doesn't have much in the way of features (no error checking to speak of, no formatting and/or null handling, etc.). But it's easy to see what's going on and shows that you don't need much code for some basic tasks.</p>
<p>...[roboticus]</p>
<p><i>When your only tool is a hammer, all problems look like your thumb.</i></p>
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