How do I create an html report without hardcoding the html?
I'm currently refactoring a console application whose main responsibility is to generate a report based on values stored in the database.
The way I've been creating the report up til now is as follows:
const string format = "<tr><td>{0, 10}</td><td>
{1}</td><td>{2, 8}</td><td>{3}</td><td>{4, -30}</td>
<td>{5}</td><td>{6}</td></tr>";
if(items.Count > 0)
{
builder.AppendLine(
String.Format(format, "Date", "Id", "WorkItemId",
"Account Number", "Name", "Address", "Description"));
}
foreach(Item item in items)
{
builder.AppendLine(String.Format(format, item.StartDate, item.Id,
item.WorkItemId, item.AccountNumber,
String.Format("{0} {1}",
item.FirstName, item.LastName),
item.Address, item.Description));
}
string report = String.Format("<html><table border=\"1\">{0}
</table></html>",
builder.ToString());
(The above is just a sample...and sorry about the formatting...I tried to format it so it wouldn't require horizontal scrolling....)
I really don't like that way I've done this. It works and does the job for now...but I just don't think it is maintainable...particularly if the report becomes any more complex in terms of the html that needs to be created. Worse still, other developers on my team are sure to copy and paste my code for their applications that generate an html report and are likely to create a horrible mess. (I've already seen such horrors produced! Imagine a report function that has hundreds of lines of hard coded sql to retrieve the details of the report...its enough to make a grown man cry!)
However, while I don't like this at all...I just can't think of a different way to do it.
Surely there must be a way to do this...I'm certain of it. Not too long ago I was doing the same thing when generating tables in aspx pages until someone kindly showed me that I can just bind the objects to a control and let .NET take care of the rendering. It turned horrible code, similar to the code above, into two or three elegant lines of goodness.
Does anyone know of a similar way of creating the html for this report without hard-coding the html?
Answer
Make your app to produce XML file with raw data. Then apply an external XSLT to it which would contain HTML.
More info: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/14689742.aspx