This gem is currently in active development. It needs a lot of documentation and test work before it can really be useful.
Java reporting libraries have a lot of flexibility, but they are verbose, require a lot of manual SQL, and are difficult to maintain.
Ruby reporting libraries are great, but none plug directly in to Rails apps to make it a breeze to add to an existing project. They also don’t have a lot of the advanced features of their Java counterparts (such as JasperReports).
ActiveReport aims to bridge the gap by bringing the power of Java reporting libraries to Rails, using a very simple and familiar interface.
In your Gemfile:
gem 'active_report', :git => github.com/wilcox-tech/ActiveReport.git
In your config/routes.rb:
mount ActiveReport::Engine, :at => '/reports' # (or wherever you want it)
class MyAwesomeReport < ActiveReport::Base reports_on :orders join_with :customers date_range_on :orders, :ordered_on group :customers, :country column :orders, :payment_types, :count => true end
This will allow you to generate a report by visiting $mountpoint/MyAwesomeReport (or $mountpoint/my_awesome) in your Rails app. The report will contain a listing of countries you have received orders from, and the count of payment types. Something like:
Australia Credit card 10 Cheque 7 United Kingdom Cash 11 Credit card 8 Cheque 1
At least that’s the plan. The API and output may look slightly different as development progresses. :)