An Insider to XML Publisher

An Insider to XML Publisher Oracle XML Publisher has gained a lot of popularity among developers and also among the businesses as its very easy to create a report using XML Publisher and even more easy to generate reports in various formats like PDF, EXCEL, RTF etc.

A short guide to XML Publisher

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XML Publisher

Oracle XML Publisher has gained a lot of popularity among developers and also among the businesses as its very easy to

create a report using XML Publisher and even more easy to generate reports in various formats like PDF, EXCEL, RTF etc.

Oracle created XML Publisher is as a template based tool for publishing reports and much more along with Oracle E-

business Suite. XML Publisher is powerful enough to populate the data fetched by a PL SQL package into a custom, yes

custom, template and then generate the report in any of the desired form such as PDF, HTML, RTF, EXCEL (HTML) and

even PLAIN TEXT for transmission using EFT and EDI.

Difference between Classical Reporting Tools and XML Publisher: The classical reporting tool had very different approach from that of XML Publisher e.g. in Report 6i used to combine all

the aspects of report generation i.e. the data definition, the report layout and the translation in to a single entity. In this

case it became very complex and cumbersome even if the report needed minor changes. Also if the same report is

required in another language then one more report needs to be generated in other language. All these and many more

hiccups made Oracle to come up with XML Publisher.

With XML Publisher things were very different in a positive way. XML Publisher treats all the three aspects of report

generation i.e. the data definition, the report layout and the translation separately at design time, but at run time all the

three aspects are brought together and the final report is generated. So if the report needs changes at the report layout

level then Data Definition and the Translation part are not supposed to be touched and only the Report Design can be

changed alone. This means less time and money is being spent in maintenance of these reports.

The working of the XML Publisher can be understood with the help of the following diagram:

Business Logic: In this part or aspect the required data (as per the business logic) is extracted/fetched from the

database and is converted in to XML Strings.

Report Layout: In this aspect or section of the XML Publisher the layout or the template of the final report to be

generated is stored and Managed in the Template Manager. These layouts or template can be very easily created using

familiar word processing software like Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel etc.

Translation: The translation handler will manage the translation that is required at runtime.



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How to generate reports using XML Publisher Pre-Requisites:

1. Oracle XML Publisher Release 5.5 or higher.

2. Template builder (Usually gets installed with Oracle XML Publisher 5.5 itself).

3. MS Office 2000 or higher to create templates.

Steps to install XML Publisher:

1. Go to XML Publisher Desktop and double click the setup.exe, this will start the Install Shield Wizard which will

guide you throughout the process

2. After the installation is completed Open MS Word, you will be able to see one more menu item named

“Template Builder” as shown in the image below. This menu will enable you embed the XML data into your

template, set many preferences and preview the output of the report.



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Steps to generate a report using XML Publisher:

1. Create a PL SQL Package or Procedure that will fetch the required data as per the business requirement and then

place the data to be displayed in XML tags into an output file.

2. Create an AOL concurrent program that will execute the PL SQL stored procedure created in step 1.

3. Create a template or the desired layout of the report to be generated using Template Builder.

4. Upload the finalized template or layout of the report to Oracle Application using XML Publisher Administrator

responsibility.

5. Run the AOL concurrent program so that it in turn executes the PL SQL stored procedure to generate the data

for the report.

6. Republish the Report.

Now let’s elaborate each and every point mentioned above:

We will create a PL SQL package that will fetch the data from the data base tables and then populate the same

data in to XML tags.

Below is a simple example of such a PL SQL package.

/*Demo Package Specification*/

CREATE OR REPLACE PACKAGE Demo_XDO_pkg

AS

PROCEDURE Demo_RTF(o_errbuf OUT VARCHAR2,o_retcode OUT VARCHAR2 );

END Demo_XDO_pkg;

/*Demo Package Definition*/

CREATE OR REPLACE PACKAGE BODY Demo_XDO_pkg as

PROCEDURE Demo_RTF( o_errbuf OUT VARCHAR2,o_retcode OUT VARCHAR2 )

AS

/*Cursor to fetch Employee Records*/

CURSOR csr_employee

IS

SELECT papf.person_id prsn_id

,papf.full_name prsn_name

,employee_number emp_no

,pg.name grade

FROM per_all_people_f papf,

per_all_assignments_f paaf,

per_grades pg

WHERE papf.person_id=paaf.person_id

AND paaf.grade_id=pg.grade_id

AND paaf.assignment_type='E'

AND paaf.primary_flag='Y'



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AND TRUNC(SYSDATE) BETWEEN papf.effective_start_date AND papf.effective_end_date

AND TRUNC(SYSDATE) BETWEEN paaf.effective_start_date AND paaf.effective_end_date

AND TRUNC(SYSDATE) BETWEEN NVL(pg.date_from,sysdate) AND NVL(pg.date_to,sysdate)

AND papf.business_group_id=5603

AND ROWNUM<2;

/*Cursor to fetch employee’s dependent (Children) records*/

CURSOR csr_children(p_person_id NUMBER)

IS

SELECT papf.person_id child_id

,papf.full_name child_name

,papf.date_of_birth dob

FROM per_contact_relationships pcr,

per_all_people_f papf

WHERE pcr.contact_person_id=papf.person_id

AND pcr.person_id=p_person_id

AND pcr.contact_type='C'

AND TRUNC(SYSDATE) BETWEEN NVL(pcr.date_start,sysdate) AND NVL(pcr.date_end,sysdate)

AND TRUNC(SYSDATE) BETWEEN papf.effective_start_date AND papf.effective_end_date;

BEGIN

/*First line of XML data should be ‘<?xml version="1.0"?>’*/

FND_FILE.PUT_LINE(FND_FILE.OUTPUT,'<?xml version="1.0"?>');

FND_FILE.PUT_LINE(FND_FILE.OUTPUT,'<PERDUMMY1>');

FOR v_employee IN csr_employee

LOOP

/*for each record create a group tag <G_EMP_NAME> at the start*/

FND_FILE.PUT_LINE(FND_FILE.OUTPUT,'<G_EMP_NAME>');

/*Embed data between XML tags for ex:- <EMP_NAME>Abeesh</EMP_NAME>*/

FND_FILE.PUT_LINE(FND_FILE.OUTPUT,'<EMP_NAME>' || v_employee.prsn_name

|| '</EMP_NAME>');

FND_FILE.PUT_LINE(FND_FILE.OUTPUT,'<EMP_NO>' || v_employee.emp_no ||

'</EMP_NO>');

FND_FILE.PUT_LINE(FND_FILE.OUTPUT,'<GRADE>' || v_employee.grade

||'</GRADE>');

FOR v_children IN csr_children(v_employee.prsn_id)

LOOP



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/*for each child record create a group tag <G_NO_CHILD> at the start*/

FND_FILE.PUT_LINE(FND_FILE.OUTPUT,'<G_NO_CHILD>');

FND_FILE.PUT_LINE(FND_FILE.OUTPUT,'<CHILD_NAME>' ||

v_children.child_name || '</CHILD_NAME>');

FND_FILE.PUT_LINE(FND_FILE.OUTPUT,'<CHILD_DOB>' ||

v_children.dob || '</CHILD_DOB>');

FND_FILE.PUT_LINE(FND_FILE.OUTPUT,'<CHILD_CLASS>

I</CHILD_CLASS>');

FND_FILE.PUT_LINE(FND_FILE.OUTPUT,'<CHILD_SCHOOL>BHAVANS

</CHILD_SCHOOL>');

FND_FILE.PUT_LINE(FND_FILE.OUTPUT,'<CHILD_FEES>100

</CHILD_FEES>');

/*Close the group tag </G_NO_CHILD> at the end of child record*/

FND_FILE.PUT_LINE(FND_FILE.OUTPUT,'</G_NO_CHILD>');

END LOOP;

/*Close the group tag </G_EMP_NAME> at the end of employee record*/

FND_FILE.PUT_LINE(FND_FILE.OUTPUT,'</G_EMP_NAME>');

END LOOP;

/*finally Close the starting Report tag*/

FND_FILE.PUT_LINE(FND_FILE.OUTPUT,'</PERDUMMY1>');

END Demo_RTF;

END Demo_XDO_pkg;

Now we will have to create an executable and attach the newly created executable to a concurrent program, so

that the PL SQL stored procedure can be executed.

We will name the executable as DEMOXDO2 that will call above mentioned procedure

Demo_XDO_pkg.Demo_RTF.

Here’s the navigation for creating an Executable

Application Developer Responsibility -> Concurrent ->Executable



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Also we need to create a new concurrent Program say (“New Demo XDO Reports”) that will call above mentioned

executable DEMOXDO2

To create new concurrent program just go to

Application Developer Responsibility -> Concurrent ->Program

Attach the newly created Concurrent Program to a specific Request Group from where the Concurrent Program is

supposed to run. This step can be understood from the screen shot below.



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From the appropriate responsibility, use the Submit Request form to run the concurrent request and cross check the

XML output that is generated.

As you can see that the block mentioning the Layout is blank, this is because we haven’t yet attached any layout or

template to the report being generated.



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Once you run the concurrent program, click on the view output button so as to see the XML file along with the data that

has been generated as a result of the concurrent program run.

Please save this XML file on your desktop computer with some name say (“Demo.xml”), but make sure that you remove

all the dashes “-“ that appear in the file.

For the next step we will create a template which will act as the layout for the final report that will be generated

soon.

Creation of a template in itself is a two step process.

1. Designing the template as specified in the business requirement.

2. Marking up the XML template layout with the XML tags.

Let’s have a look at how each step is supposed to be performed.

1. Designing the template as specified in the business requirement.

For this step we need to use the Microsoft MS Word application to design a template and then save the

template a “RTF” file on your desktop computer.

A screen shot of a demo template is shown below for reference.



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2. Marking up the XML template layout with the XML tags.

Once done with the creation of the template, we need to insert the XML tags into the template; these tags

will be replaced by data at runtime. In order to achieve this go to the “Template Builder” menu and the

select Data and then Load XML Data.

We will be asked to select the XML data, remember the “Demo.xml” file that we have saved previously to

our desktop computer? We just need to select that file.

The next step is to add the XML tags to the report template layout; this is a very easy step and fun to do. In

the report layout, locate the place where the data will be inserted at runtime, highlight that place and then

from the “Template Builder” menu select the “Insert” menu and then select the “Field” item.

This will open up a popup containing all the XML tags that we got in our “Demo.xml” file. Just select the

appropriate tag and click on the “Insert” button. The screen shot below displays the insertion of

“Emp_Name” tag into the report layout.



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Note:

1. To insert the repeating tags into the XML report layout, we have to select the “Insert” and then “Table/Form”

from the “Template Builder” menu. This will open a different popup window which will ask to select the parent

node, in our case the parent node is “G_NO_CHILD”. The popup window opened by selecting “Insert”, and then

“Table/Form” will look as shown in the screen shot below.

Suppose we want to add the summation of a column also at some place in the report layout, then we need to select the

“Insert” and then “Field” and then select the tag whose summation is supposed to be displayed. This will become clear

by the following screen shot.



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Once all the above mentioned steps are over, our report template will look as the one shown in the below screen shot.

XML Publisher gives you the freedom to preview the report before running it. But you must be thinking that we don’t

have data, then how come we can preview the report? Remember the “Demo.xml” file that we have saved on our

desktop? The data from the same file will be used to preview the report. To preview the report select “Preview” from

the menu under “Template Builder” menu.



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Add the report layout template in to Oracle Application.

To achieve this we should have “XML Publisher Administrator” responsibility to the user. Using this responsibility

we can add a template to the report.

The process of adding a template to the report is again broken into steps for easy understanding and

remembrance.

Step- 1 Initially we have to register our concurrent request as a data definition.

To achieve this go to XML Publisher Administrator -> Data Definitions -> Create Data Definition. Give a name to

the data definition. The most important point to remember here is that, the data definition code (shown

highlighted) should be the same as that of the concurrent program short name, as this allows the concurrent

manager to get a list of templates that are available for that concurrent program at runtime.

In the XML Schema field browse to the “Demo.xml” that we have save to our desktop.

Here’s the screen shot of the Data Definition creation page with the data definition code highlighted.



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Step- 2 now we will register our template with the use of template manager. Doing this is simple, go to the XML

Publisher Administrator and then templates and Create Template. While registering the template we will be

asked to assign an already existing Data Definition to it, hence we will assign the data definition that we have

created in the previous step to our template. Then upload the RTF template layout and select the language and

territory.



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This will be the final step in the generation of the report. To complete this step, run the concurrent program

from the appropriate responsibility. Since, we have attached the template to the concurrent program we can

see that the Layout Block displays the name of the template that has been attached to the report.

In the layout section of the submit request window we can select the template (if there are more than one

template), template language and also the output format for the report to be generated. Also, from this window

we can activate the XML Publisher’s preview feature.



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Upon the completion of the concurrent program run click on the view output run button to view the final report

that has been generated. Below screen shot shows the report generated in the PDF format.

There are many other options also available on the Concurrent Manager menu. We can republish and print the

report, we can even republish and view the report or simply we can reprint the report.



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The difference between these actions is given below.

Republish and Print – This action allows us to select a new template and output format for the

completed concurrent request data. The data, layout, and output selections are sent to XML Publisher to

republish the request data.

Republish and View – this option allows us to select a new template and output format for the

completed request data for viewing only. The formatting is performed without creating a new

concurrent request.

Reprint – sends the published request to the selected printer

Hope that this guide helps you.

Thanks for reading

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