1. Building a reporting system with
BREW
Xavi Guardiola
Chief Technology Officer
Simpple - Xarxa Sanitària i Social de Santa Tecla
xavier.guardiola@simpple.com
@xguardi

2. Enterprise report generation
Datawharehouse
Data analysis
Report template wizards:
Report template Jasper Reports, BIRT, etc.
Report
Report distribution:
Rep Rep Rep Web, email.
Dynamic reports

3. Enterprise reporting design shortcomings
Poor in-report logic.
Not a best practice but most of the times inevitable!
Ugly defaults.
Please, check out Tufte books.
Simple plots.
Sometimes you need statistical or more complex plots.
Regular users should be able to create their own reports. Really?

4. Brew The dumbest example
example.brew
<% x <- 2 %>
Good morning.
Today the kilo oranges
is priced at <%= x %> euros.
R> brew(“example.brew”, “example.txt”)
example.txt
Good morning.
Today the kilo oranges
is priced at 2 euros.

5. Brew Precomputing things before
example.R
x <- 2
save(x, file= “data.Rdata”)
example.brew
<% load(“data.Rdata”) %>
Good morning.
Today the kilo oranges
is priced at <%= x %> euros.
R> brew(“example.brew”, “example.txt”)
example.txt
Good morning.
Today the kilo oranges
is priced at 2 euros.

6. Brew Smart templates
example.R
x <- 2
save(x, file= “data.Rdata”)
example.brew
<% load(“data.Rdata”) %>
Good morning.
Today the kilo oranges
is priced at <%= x %> euros.
<% if x > 1 %>
That’s f***ing expensive!
<% end %>
R> brew(“example.brew”, “example.txt”)
example.txt
Good morning.
Today the kilo oranges
is priced at 2 euros.
That’s f***ing expensive!

7. Brew + latex
example.brew
begin{document}
Today the kilo oranges $rightarrow$ <%= x %> euros.
end{document}
R> brew(“example.brew”, “example.tex”)
example.tex
begin{document}
Today the kilo oranges $rightarrow$ 2 euros.
end{document}
R> texi2dvi(“example.tex”, pdf=TRUE)
example.pdf
Today the kilo oranges ! 2 euros.

8. The alternative stack
R selects DB data
Datawharehouse Datawharehouse RJDBC, RMySQL, etc.
R computes results and
Data analysis R script plots.
Latex brew template loads
Report template Brew latex template results and plots and
generate template file
PDF report is generated
Report Report from the tex file
Rep Rep Rep Rep Rep Rep

9. Report example

10. Report example

11. Report example

12. Brew vs Sweave
example.brew example.Rnw
begin{document} begin{document}
begin{table} <<Table1, echo=F,results=tex>>=
<% for (i in 1:nrow(data)) { -%> print(xtable(data))
<%= data$name[i] %> & @
<%= data$value[i] %>
end{table} Price is Sexpr{x}
Price is <%= x %> <<plot1, echo=F, fig=T>>==
print(plot1)
begin{figure} @
includegraphics{...}
end{figure} end{document}
end{document}

13. Thanks!