Dynamic HTML::Template Database Template

Category:	CGI Programming
Author/Contact Info	jeffa
Description:	Have you ever wanted to write an HTML::Template script that would display any database query without having to change the template file? Well, this bit of code attempts to do just that. Just supply a query and optional place holders and the code will do the rest. Of course, changing the layout of the table is a manual process, but the number and names of the columns are dynamically supplied. NULL characters and HTML encodings are taken care of (via HTML::Entities for the latter), but i have only tested this code with the MySQL relational database server. Comments and suggestions are always welcome.
use strict; use warnings; use DBI; use HTML::Entities; use HTML::Template; my $dbh = DBI->connect( qw(DBI:vendor:database:host user pass), {RaiseError=>1} ); # change these two vars to suite your needs: my @arg = (42); my $sql = 'select foo,bar from baz where qux = ?'; my $sth = $dbh->prepare($sql); $sth->execute(@arg); my $stmt = $sth->{Statement}; my $field = $sth->{NAME}; my $row = $sth->fetchall_arrayref(); my $tmpl = HTML::Template->new(filehandle => \*DATA); $tmpl->param( query => $stmt, fields => [ map { { field => ucfirst lc $_ } } @$field ], rows => [ map {{ cols => [ map { { data => defined $_ ? encode_entities $_ : ' ' } } @$_ ] }} @$row ], ); print $tmpl->output; $dbh->disconnect; __DATA__ <html> <head> <title>Dynamic table template</title> <style type="text/css"> <!-- table { border-style: outset; border-width: thin; width: 70% } th { border-style: ridge; } td { border-style: inset; } --> </style> </head> <body> <table> <thead> <caption><tmpl_var query></caption> <tr> <tmpl_loop fields> <th><tmpl_var field></th> </tmpl_loop> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tmpl_loop rows> <tr> <tmpl_loop cols> <td><tmpl_var data></td> </tmpl_loop> </tr> </tmpl_loop> </tbody> </table> </body> </html>

Comment on Dynamic HTML::Template Database Template Download Code

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Re: Dynamic HTML::Template Database Template
by diotalevi (Canon) on Oct 02, 2002 at 17:13 UTC

Nice. The only thing I really want to change about that is that double map on $row. I'm thinking that I'd really like to alter the arrays in place instead of making a new copy to (hopefully) keep the memory requirements lower.

# Jeffa
   rows => [
      map {{ cols => [ 
         map {
            { data => defined $_ ? encode_entities $_ : '&nbsp;' }
         } @$_ 
      ] }} @$row
   ],

# becomes -{diotalevi}->
my ($row, $value);
for $row (@$rows)
  {
    for $value(@$row)
      {
        $value = { data => defined($value)
                           ? encode_entities($value)
                           : '&nbsp;' };
      }
    $row = { cols => $row };
  }

# and later
   rows => \@rows

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Update 0: I initially forgot to create the hash and array refs inline. My bad
Update 1: $row = { cols => $row } used to be $row = [ cols => $row ]
Update 2: rows => $rows was rows => \@rows

__SIG__
printf "You are here %08x\n", unpack "L!", unpack "P4", pack "L!", B::svref_2object(sub{})->OUTSIDE

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