Booleans

Values true, yes and 1 stand for boolean true, values false, no and 0 stand for boolean false. Recommended form is true and false.

Colors

Color values may be specified in one of the following forms:

• 6-digit hexadecimal number prefixed by a hash mark (HTML format),
• color name from the following dictionary (case insensitive),
• three integer values: red, green, blue (0..255),
• three float values: red, green, blue (0..1),
• single integer value, where
  • the red component is in bits 16-23,
  • the green component is in bits 8-15,
  • the blue component is in bits 0-7.

Recommended form is the first one.

Standard color names:

Dimensions

All report dimensions (page and field sizes, margins etc.) are expressed as integer or floating point numbers with optional suffix:

• mm - millimeters,
• cm - centimeters,
• in - inches,
• pt - points (1/72 inch).

If suffix is omitted, dimension is in points.

It is recommended to always use integral points for all dimensions to avoid rounding errors.

The origin of the coordinate system (0,0) is always in the left upper corner of a container (page or section).

Expressions

All expressions are evaluated in the context of current result set row, i.e. result set fields may be referred directly as python variables. In addition, expressions can use names defined by import, parameter and variable elements and the following predefined variables:

Evaluation context performs name lookup in the following order:

1. Predefined variables.
2. Names created by import elements.
3. parameter names.
4. variable names.
5. Items of the row object (dictionary-like).
6. Attributes of the row object (structure-like).

report

The root element of template. Contains a sequence of parameter, variable, import, font, and data elements and exactly one layout element.

Attributes:

parameter

This element sets parameter values for report generation.

Attributes:

variable

Report variable. Used to run counters, sums and such.

Attributes:

Calculation types:

import

Import a symbol from Python module.

Attributes:

font

Font definition for use in text fields and as a default font in sections and whole report.

Attributes:

data

Contains arbitrary data for use in field, image and barcode elements.

This is the only element in PythonReports templates that has significant body text [6]; for all other elements body text is ignored.

Attributes:

style

The style elements may be contained in all section elements and body elements. Style attributes printwhen, font, color and bgcolor propagate to inner elements, i.e. if an element does not have these attributes in the applicable style, they are searched up the layout hierarchy.

Attributes:

box

Defines rectangular space occupied by report elements.

Attributes:

eject

Tells when section elements must be started on a new page or column.

For the title section, eject is evaluated at the end of the section, for all other sections - at the beginning of the section.

Attributes:

outline

A bookmark in the document navigation pane.

Some printout rendering front-ends may support navigation in the document contents. (For example, PDF documents have an outline pane.) The outline element defines an entry for document navigation tree.

Attributes:

xref

A hyperlink to an external resource or an outline entry.

xref elements may contain one box element, a sequence of style definitions, and any body elements. The order of body elements is important: elements appearing later in the template sequence are laid out on top of previous elements.

Attributes:

embedded

An inline subreport definition for a nested sequence of data.

Embedded subreports inherit page layout, fonts, and named data blocks from containing template and always start rendering at current page position of containing report.

Similar to layout definition, embedded element contains one group or detail element and may contain a sequence of style elements and possible columns, header, footer, title, and summary elements. In addition, embedded element may contain parameter, variable, and embedded elements.

Attributes:

arg

Actual argument value passed to subreport to fill a parameter slot.

Attributes:

subreport

Sets an embedded report to run on an inner data sequence.

For example, imagine you have a team of successful encyclopaedia salesmans each selling a really fine set of modern encyclopaedias. Common way to make a report on encyclopedia sales in RDBMS world would be to run the report on the list of all sold encyclopedias and use report groups to print name and total earnings for each salesman. Subreports allow you to do it the other way round - pass a sequence of salesmans to main report template and then run an encyclopedia subreport for each detail section of the main report. It could be especially useful if some of the team members work in a different ways - say, sell something to break the ice at parties - and thus require a totally different layout for their parts.

subreport element may contain a set of arg elements.

Subreports must not be placed inside columns.

title

A child element of layout or group element containing a summary printed before report data.

While report title is processed, all *_COUNT values are set to zero (see predefined variables.)

Attributes:

summary

A child element of layout or group element containing a summary printed after report data.

Attributes:

header

A child element of layout or columns describing header layout for report page or column respectively.

footer

A child element of layout or columns describing footer layout for report page or column respectively.

layout

Topmost element of report layout definition.

The layout element contains one group or detail element and may contain a sequence of style elements and possible embedded, columns, header, footer, title, and summary elements.

Attributes:

columns

Arranges report data for multi-column output. May be used in layout and group elements.

Please note: although it is possible to make nested column templates (you may have columns in layout and then in data group and again in a nested group), that does not work well. It is highly recommended to have only one (or none) columns element per report template.

The columns element may contain a sequence of style elements and possible header and footer elements.

Attributes:

group

Defines a data-based group of report records.

Attributes:

detail

The detail section. Built once for each item in the report data set.

field

Output a text field.

Contents of the field may be set by expr or data attributes or by child data element. Data may be set (either by attribute or by child element) along with expr to estimate field size when expr evaluation is delayed by non-empty evaltime. When evaluation time arrives, the field is filled with expr result.

Attributes:

line

Draw a line.

Attributes:

rectangle

Draw a rectangle.

Attributes:

image

Place bitmap image. The bitmap may be loaded from a file or from a data element (either put in the image element or referred by the data attribute.)

Attributes:

barcode

Print a bar code image.

For 1-dimensional bar codes (Code128, Code39, and 2of5i), the box always grows in the direction of coding (vertically if vertical="true", horizontally otherwise) and is aligned or filled (depending on the grow option) in the opposite direction. For 2-dimensional bar codes (Aztec and QR), the box grows both vertically and horizontally according to minimal allowed symbol size.

Code contents may be set by expr or data attributes or by child data element. Data may be set (either by attribute or by child element) along with expr to estimate image size when expr evaluation is delayed by non-empty evaltime. When evaluation time arrives, expr result produces the bar code image.

Characters that cannot be encoded with selected code type are ignored.

Attributes: