LaTeXDBIntegrating LaTeX and SQL databases |
latexdb-0.1.tgz |
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This is LaTeXDB. The purpose of this project is to bring together LaTeX and an SQL database. By using LaTeXDB you can use SQL queries in your LaTeX document and loop over the result sets, creating tables, serial letters and other stuff. LaTeXDB is released under the GPL. Contents
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\begin{document}
\texdbfor{##AllUsers}{
Dear ##Title ##Lastname,
thanks for ordering ##Quant items of ##Product.
I'll ship it to your address in ##Town when I
find the time.
Best regards,
\newpage
}
\end{document}
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LaTeXDB is pretty simple to use, there are only three new commands to extend your LaTeX files: With them you define a database connection, create queries and access the result sets.
You include commands such as
\texdbconnection{DBType,host,user,passwd,db}
to setup a database connection,
\texdbdef{##query}{select var1,var2,... from table where...}{##VAR1,##VAR2,...}
to define a query, and
\texdbfor{##query}{... some LaTeX stuff with ##VAR1, ...}
to use the results in your LaTeX code.
The initial relase of LaTeXDB supports only MySQL. You need Python and the Python _mysql module. MySQL need not be running on the local machine, since you can use any server that you could also access from the mysql command line client.
Version 0.1 [2003/08/15]: latexdb-0.1.tgz
This is easy too: Grab the archive, unpack it, and run install as root, or for minimum functionality copy latexdb, latexdb.py and latexdb-preparse.py from the code directory to /usr/local/bin or some other directory that can be found in $PATH. Only put them in the same directory, because latexdb expects latexdb.py in its own directory.
For a first try of LaTeXDB check the tiny tutorial in workshop.html. A more thorough description can be found in reference.html. There are some examples in the examples folder of the package.
The initial release is a quick hack, more a proof on concept. Two of the special commands introduced with LaTeXDB (the database connection and query definitions) need to sit on a line of their own (and only one line), only the command for using the result set can use as many lines as you like and have other stuff in front and behind.
The Python code is strictly procedural. Some people won't like that since you're supposed to do objects in Python ;) But I couldn't be bothered. If anyone likes to write up this code and make it follow standard Python programming more properly, I'd be happy to see that code.
I have not included proper error condition checking. Do something wrong, and the tool will break. It won't kill any of your files, and it will even give some hint as to what was wrong while it dies.
There's no point in trying to list all developers who have created the software that I used. However, this program is here thanks to the existence of Linux, MySQL, Python, TeX, LaTeX, and lots of other stuff -- we tend to forget.
The man page was created using manedit, http://wolfpack.twu.net/ManEdit/.
LaTeXDB is Copyright © 2003 Hans-Georg Eßer (h.g.esser@gmx.de).
It is released under the GNU GPL, a copy of which you find in the package after downloading. This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
If you have suggestions how to improve this software, or if you have successfully used it for something a lot better than the trivial examples given in the documentation -- please drop me a note.