Reporting system and potentially Python

Tim M tim at filmchicago.org
Fri Jul 8 10:24:21 EDT 2011


On Fri, Jul 8, 2011 at 8:44 AM, John Ralls <jralls at ceridwen.us> wrote:

>
> This is in general a good plan, but you need to know that there's a reason
> for the engine code to be between the storage backends and the GUI and
> reporting system: It's the part that knows how to manage currencies and lots
> and invoices and such. In database applications that's called the business
> logic layer. Now it's true that a lot of what is in our engine belongs in
> the  database layer (the backend), but there's also a lot that can't go
> there because databases don't know how to do it. Fixing that is another
> long-term project.
>
> Reports, the GUI, and even the command-line are called the presentation
> layer. The presentation layer has to pass all of its requests through the
> business logic layer to ensure that all of the accounting rules are applied
> correctly; nothing but the business logic layer should talk to the database
> layer. That's the theory. The reality of Gnucash is that the engine API is
> so confusing and inflexible that the new DBI backend has tempted people to
> try querying the backend directly with SQL so that they can get the reports
> they want without having to spend the time to learn the engine's API.
>
> Geert mentioned the QofQuery class. I'm concerned that it's both too
> limited in function and too low-level (it's used by the engine to query data
> structures, so it may not apply business logic to its results) to work as a
> direct interface for a report service. It's worth studying, though, because
> modifying it might be the shortest path to getting a workable query
> interface.
>
> Regards,
> John Ralls
>
>
John,

Thank you for the clarification.

I think we are on the same page.  Any sort of "web service" would act just
as an interface to the outside (the Report system, or other third-party
requests to the GnuCash web service) and then internally it would perform
queries against the GnuCash DB via the engine code.  I never had any
intention of querying the DB directly - I only intended to wrap the engine
code (whether it be QofQuery or whatever else is appropriate).  The web
service methods would only call the necessary engine code to query the data,
and then wrap the results into the XML output and send it back to the
client.

Are you saying that it may be a problem to implement a web service to query
the database using the engine code to generate the reports this way?  Isn't
this what the scheme reports do now?  Otherwise how do they access the data
to generate the reports?  I presume they do not access the DB directly but
use the engine code to do it.

As I see it, the web service should work more or less as follows:
1. A Report or other service issues a SOAP/REST request to the GnuCash web
service.  The request must adhere to the GnuCash WSDL (anything not adhering
to it will be ignored).
2. The GnuCash web service receives the request.
3. The web service queries the database using the GnuCash engine code.
4. The web service wraps the results from the engine code into an XML
wrapper.
5. The web service sends the XML output back to the client.
6. The XSLT translation occurs on the client to display the data.

Thanks,
-Tim


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