Eric Lecoutre
2005-Jan-12 13:16 UTC
[R] [survey] R for Reporting - the R Output MAnager (ROMA) project
Hi R UseRs,
I am interested in providing Reporting abilities to R and have initiated a
project called R Output MAnager (ROMA).
My starting point was my R2HTML package which provides (rough) HTML
exportations. I began with trying to mimic it for LaTeX but fastly did
realize that it was a bad idea.
Thus, I started again from scratch a new package and did spend a lot of
time reading about this topic, looking at what other software do (SAS ODS,
SPlus SPXML,...) and studying technologies and formats: XML+XLST, LyX,
DocBook, RTF,...
What follows is a description of my plans. This email is targetted to
interested useRs, in order to have a return on that.
It comes with a little survey at the end that will be useful to me to
target my package.
If you are also interested in Reporting (Output, Formats, Exchange,...),
please read the following and answer the survey.
If not, you can skip this message - apologies for sending it to R-help, I
hope you don't mind.
---
As a matter of fact, I have implemented something that shows promises
(according to me). Currently, from the following output description:
***
data(iris)
mm=as.matrix(iris[1:5,1:4])
out = emptyContent()
out = out + Section("A title here")
out = out + diag(2)
out = out + Comment("comment: yes!")
out = out + list(un=1,pi)
out = out + "Then a boolean:" + TRUE
out = out + Section("Default matrix",level=2)
out = out + mm
out = out + Section("Custom matrix" + Footnote("It
works!"),level=2)
out = out +
ROMA(mm,style="custommatrix",rowstyle=paste("color",row(mm)[,1]%%2,sep=""),align="left")
out = out + Section("An other title")
out = out + ROMAgenerated() # ROMAgenerated is a predefined function
***
You can generate a proper HTML file by the following command:
> Export(out)
(see result: http://www.stat.ucl.ac.be/ROMA/sample.htm)
The same "output object" could be exported to (tex+dvi+ps+pdf) with:
> Export(out,driver="latex")
(see result: http://www.stat.ucl.ac.be/ROMA/sample.pdf / Change extension
for other formats: tex and ps)
--- Survey ---
IMPORTANT: ONLY DO REPLY TO ME, NOT TO R-HELP MAILING LIST
Simply fill in the questions you want to asnwer to:
1. I am interesting in Reporting abilities for R
[ ] Definitively
[ ] Rather Yes
[ ] Rather No
[ ] Not at all
2. I have some knowledge about those different formats / specifications
[ ] rtf [ ] LaTeX [ ] LyX
[ ] html [ ] css [ ] xHTML
[ ] XML [ ] XLST [ ] DocBook
3. I have some knowledge about those tools
[ ] SAS ODS
[ ] SPlus SPXML library
[ ] XLST + XLST-FO chain
4. I would be specially interested in the following formats (multiple
choices possible)
[ ] rtf
[ ] tex
[ ] lyx
[ ] XML, with a DTD specific to R
[ ] XML, with the DTD from SPlus (compatible with SPXML library)
[ ] XML, DocBook flavor
[ ] HTML + css (good xHTML)
[ ] Word (doc)
[ ] OpenOffice (oo)
[ ] Plain text
[ ] Other:
4bis: If several formats, the best (according to me and my needs) one would
be: ____
5. The approach is to fully separate content from formating. So, XML would
be an ideal output format. Nevertheless, few people who use R may also
mater XLST to produce nice formatted output. Thus, a way to handle styles
(bold, colors, fonts, etc.) from R would also be great. It may not be a
priority. Statistical output do have some specific issues: mathematics,
complicated tables, graphs, and so on. For each of the following items,
please tell me how important the issue is for you:
0: I don't need that (and think I will never need it)
1: Not really important
...
5: Crucial - I can't leave without that point anymore
5.1 - Beeing able to read the document in any OS:
Importance: __
5.2 - Having an object that describes the output within R (as in the
example), so that I could add/remove things, reexport it
Importance: __
5.3 - Beeing able to define basics formatting also within R (bold,
colors, fonts, and so on)
Importance: __
5.4 - Beeing able to include mathematics, as (La)TeX codes or MathML
Importance: __
5.5 - Beeing able to build complicated tables, with merged cells,
embedding lists, eventually sub-tables
Importance: __
6. Here are some conceptual objects that a report may contain. Are there
any more you can think to which may be important?
Tables (containing Rows and Cells), Lists, Titles, Footnotes, Comment,
Abbreviations / Acronyms, Code, Links, Graphs, Layout (to have 2 or 3
columns), Mathematics (equations), Table of Contents, Index
Other that could be added:
7. Two different tools allow to create "dynamic" or alike documents:
Sweave
(for LaTeX and HTML) and Rpad (HTML, with a server). I would be interested
in beeing able to describe the structure of a document that would be
exportable to:
7.1 - Sweave [ ] Yes [ ] No
7.2 - Rpad [ ] Yes [ ] No
If you are interested in contributing to the project, please let me know
also. If many people do need XML representations, I think it would be great
to have a guru in XLST abilities in the development team.
Thanks for attention,
Happy R,
Eric
Eric Lecoutre
UCL / Institut de Statistique
Voie du Roman Pays, 20
1348 Louvain-la-Neuve
Belgium
tel: (+32)(0)10473050
lecoutre at stat.ucl.ac.be
http://www.stat.ucl.ac.be/ISpersonnel/lecoutre
If the statistics are boring, then you've got the wrong numbers. -Edward
Tufte
A.J. Rossini
2005-Jan-12 13:46 UTC
[R] [survey] R for Reporting - the R Output MAnager (ROMA) project
Your example is sequential, ignoring the tree-like structure of most documents. Why not via a DOM or similar "XML-ish" structure? While I'd never advocate general purpose XML as a user format, as you note, that is what XSLT is for, and using XML as an electronic internal document representation would provide a potentially more scalable system. (i.e. use XML and the DOM internally, but provide a simple API to it). The other advantage would be that you could stick a dependency DAG (ADG) via a second set of marked edges of the document "graph/tree" to allow for selective regeneration of results. But then, this project isn't on my to-do list this year :-). best, -tony On Wed, 12 Jan 2005 14:16:57 +0100, Eric Lecoutre <lecoutre at stat.ucl.ac.be> wrote:> > Hi R UseRs, > > I am interested in providing Reporting abilities to R and have initiated a > project called R Output MAnager (ROMA). > My starting point was my R2HTML package which provides (rough) HTML > exportations. I began with trying to mimic it for LaTeX but fastly did > realize that it was a bad idea. > Thus, I started again from scratch a new package and did spend a lot of > time reading about this topic, looking at what other software do (SAS ODS, > SPlus SPXML,...) and studying technologies and formats: XML+XLST, LyX, > DocBook, RTF,... > > What follows is a description of my plans. This email is targetted to > interested useRs, in order to have a return on that. > It comes with a little survey at the end that will be useful to me to > target my package. > If you are also interested in Reporting (Output, Formats, Exchange,...), > please read the following and answer the survey. > If not, you can skip this message - apologies for sending it to R-help, I > hope you don't mind. > > --- > > As a matter of fact, I have implemented something that shows promises > (according to me). Currently, from the following output description: > > *** > data(iris) > mm=as.matrix(iris[1:5,1:4]) > > out = emptyContent() > out = out + Section("A title here") > out = out + diag(2) > out = out + Comment("comment: yes!") > out = out + list(un=1,pi) > out = out + "Then a boolean:" + TRUE > out = out + Section("Default matrix",level=2) > out = out + mm > out = out + Section("Custom matrix" + Footnote("It works!"),level=2) > out = out + > ROMA(mm,style="custommatrix",rowstyle=paste("color",row(mm)[,1]%%2,sep=""),align="left") > out = out + Section("An other title") > out = out + ROMAgenerated() # ROMAgenerated is a predefined function > *** > > You can generate a proper HTML file by the following command: > > > Export(out) > > (see result: http://www.stat.ucl.ac.be/ROMA/sample.htm) > > The same "output object" could be exported to (tex+dvi+ps+pdf) with: > > > Export(out,driver="latex") > > (see result: http://www.stat.ucl.ac.be/ROMA/sample.pdf / Change extension > for other formats: tex and ps) > > --- Survey --- > > IMPORTANT: ONLY DO REPLY TO ME, NOT TO R-HELP MAILING LIST > > Simply fill in the questions you want to asnwer to: > > 1. I am interesting in Reporting abilities for R > [ ] Definitively > [ ] Rather Yes > [ ] Rather No > [ ] Not at all > > 2. I have some knowledge about those different formats / specifications > [ ] rtf [ ] LaTeX [ ] LyX > [ ] html [ ] css [ ] xHTML > [ ] XML [ ] XLST [ ] DocBook > > 3. I have some knowledge about those tools > [ ] SAS ODS > [ ] SPlus SPXML library > [ ] XLST + XLST-FO chain > > 4. I would be specially interested in the following formats (multiple > choices possible) > [ ] rtf > [ ] tex > [ ] lyx > [ ] XML, with a DTD specific to R > [ ] XML, with the DTD from SPlus (compatible with SPXML library) > [ ] XML, DocBook flavor > [ ] HTML + css (good xHTML) > [ ] Word (doc) > [ ] OpenOffice (oo) > [ ] Plain text > [ ] Other: > > 4bis: If several formats, the best (according to me and my needs) one would > be: ____ > > 5. The approach is to fully separate content from formating. So, XML would > be an ideal output format. Nevertheless, few people who use R may also > mater XLST to produce nice formatted output. Thus, a way to handle styles > (bold, colors, fonts, etc.) from R would also be great. It may not be a > priority. Statistical output do have some specific issues: mathematics, > complicated tables, graphs, and so on. For each of the following items, > please tell me how important the issue is for you: > > 0: I don't need that (and think I will never need it) > 1: Not really important > ... > 5: Crucial - I can't leave without that point anymore > > 5.1 - Beeing able to read the document in any OS: > Importance: __ > > 5.2 - Having an object that describes the output within R (as in the > example), so that I could add/remove things, reexport it > Importance: __ > > 5.3 - Beeing able to define basics formatting also within R (bold, > colors, fonts, and so on) > Importance: __ > > 5.4 - Beeing able to include mathematics, as (La)TeX codes or MathML > Importance: __ > > 5.5 - Beeing able to build complicated tables, with merged cells, > embedding lists, eventually sub-tables > Importance: __ > > 6. Here are some conceptual objects that a report may contain. Are there > any more you can think to which may be important? > Tables (containing Rows and Cells), Lists, Titles, Footnotes, Comment, > Abbreviations / Acronyms, Code, Links, Graphs, Layout (to have 2 or 3 > columns), Mathematics (equations), Table of Contents, Index > > Other that could be added: > > 7. Two different tools allow to create "dynamic" or alike documents: Sweave > (for LaTeX and HTML) and Rpad (HTML, with a server). I would be interested > in beeing able to describe the structure of a document that would be > exportable to: > > 7.1 - Sweave [ ] Yes [ ] No > 7.2 - Rpad [ ] Yes [ ] No > > If you are interested in contributing to the project, please let me know > also. If many people do need XML representations, I think it would be great > to have a guru in XLST abilities in the development team. > > Thanks for attention, > > Happy R, > > Eric > > Eric Lecoutre > UCL / Institut de Statistique > Voie du Roman Pays, 20 > 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve > Belgium > > tel: (+32)(0)10473050 > lecoutre at stat.ucl.ac.be > http://www.stat.ucl.ac.be/ISpersonnel/lecoutre > > If the statistics are boring, then you've got the wrong numbers. -Edward > Tufte > > ______________________________________________ > R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > PLEASE do read the posting guide! http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html >-- best, -tony "Commit early,commit often, and commit in a repository from which we can easily roll-back your mistakes" (AJR, 4Jan05). A.J. Rossini blindglobe at gmail.com