Generating reports from databases

[vic07]

hello all I desperately need some help with Perl! I am very new to this programming language, never practiced it before, however where I work I have to write a program that does the following: There are two very large databases one is done on Oracle, the other in SQL server. The overall aim is to report the differences of certain fields in the databases. They are both meant to contain similar (if not) the same information but ofcourse the field names may not necessarily be written in the exact same words. The idea later on is to use this kind of report to possibly synchronize the databases, but that is well down the track. Currently, the only thing that is required is to report the differences on a small number of fields (5 of them). The report generation is to be done automatically and to be put in an output file preferably and excel spreadsheet or text file. This is then to be emailed automatically to the appropriate team... At this stage I have worked out the SQL statement that is to be used to extract this information from both databases, also how to connect to both the database, but in order to write a program like this, where do i start? what do i incorporate? what are the main things to consider? And in what order? I am very lost.. pls help! Thanks

[uthus]

Hi vic07, welcome to the board.

If you're new to the language, I'd suggest you pick up a book. Anything by Sam's or O'Reilly should work. I think the first one I had was Perl in 21 Days, but I'm not sure. O'Reilly's Perl Cookbook is another good source for example scripts.

In order to access the data you'll have to go to CPAN and get the modules that you'll need to access the database.

Not discourage you from Perl, because it's a great language and can do great things, but PHP is, IMHO, an easier language to connect to db's with. This would also require the purchase of a book. I used Sam's PHP and Web Development. It would probably answer most of your questions.

HTH

u

hello all I desperately need some help with Perl! I am very new to this programming language, never practiced it before, however where I work I have to write a program that does the following: There are two very large databases one is done on Oracle, the other in SQL server. The overall aim is to report the differences of certain fields in the databases. They are both meant to contain similar (if not) the same information but ofcourse the field names may not necessarily be written in the exact same words. The idea later on is to use this kind of report to possibly synchronize the databases, but that is well down the track. Currently, the only thing that is required is to report the differences on a small number of fields (5 of them). The report generation is to be done automatically and to be put in an output file preferably and excel spreadsheet or text file. This is then to be emailed automatically to the appropriate team... At this stage I have worked out the SQL statement that is to be used to extract this information from both databases, also how to connect to both the database, but in order to write a program like this, where do i start? what do i incorporate? what are the main things to consider? And in what order? I am very lost.. pls help! Thanks

[xmassey]

Yeah Perl may not be the best option, but it can do everything you require. However its not a beginners task and you need to have some good knowledge of using perl. Therefore you need to get a book or something to learn with, And Perl Cookbook is an excellent book for what you need, but picking it up straight away would be very confusing as it expects you have all the beginners knowledge with perl and that you know how it all works etc.
Get learning, get a script and im sure we will help you sort any issues with your script.