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

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 Ebusiness 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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A short guide to XML Publisher

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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A short guide to XML Publisher

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 lets 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
END Demo_XDO_pkg;

OUT VARCHAR2 );

/*Demo Package Definition*/

CREATE OR REPLACE PACKAGE BODY Demo_XDO_pkg as

PROCEDURE Demo_RTF(
o_errbuf
OUT VARCHAR2,o_retcode
AS

OUT VARCHAR2 )

/*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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A short guide to XML Publisher

AND
AND
AND
AND
AND

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

TRUNC(SYSDATE) BETWEEN paaf.effective_start_date AND paaf.effective_end_date
TRUNC(SYSDATE) BETWEEN NVL(pg.date_from,sysdate) AND NVL(pg.date_to,sysdate)
papf.business_group_id=5603
ROWNUM<2;

/*Cursor to fetch employees 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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A short guide to XML Publisher

/*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.
Heres the navigation for creating an Executable

Application Developer Responsibility -> Concurrent ->Executable

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A short guide to XML Publisher

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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A short guide to XML Publisher

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 havent yet attached any layout or
template to the report being generated.

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A short guide to XML Publisher

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.

Lets 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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A short guide to XML Publisher

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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A short guide to XML Publisher

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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A short guide to XML Publisher

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 dont
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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A short guide to XML Publisher

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.
Heres the screen shot of the Data Definition creation page with the data definition code highlighted.

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A short guide to XML Publisher

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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A short guide to XML Publisher

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 Publishers preview feature.

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A short guide to XML Publisher

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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A short guide to XML Publisher

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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