How to create a dynamic RTF report which creates dynamic columns based on dynamic column selection from a table?

Question

Hi All,
Suppose I have table, whose structure changes frequently on daily basis.
For eg. desc my_table gives you following column name on Day 1
SQL > desc my_table;
Output
Name
Age
Phone
On Day 2, two more columns are added, viz, Address and Salary.
SQL > desc my_table;
Output
Name
Age
Phone
Address
Salary
Now I want to create an Dynnamic RTF report which would fetch data from ALL columns from my_table on daily basis. For that I have defined a concurrent program with XML as output type and have attached a data template/data definition to it which takes in XML as input and gives final output of conc program in EXCEL layout. I am able to do this for constant number of columns, but dont know how to do it when the number of columns to be displayed changes dynamically.
For Day 1 my XML file should be like this.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<dataTemplate name="XYZ" description="iExpenses Report" Version="1.0">
<dataQuery>
<sqlStatement name="Q2">
<![CDATA[
SELECT Name
,Age
,Phone
FROM my_table
]]>
</sqlStatement>
</dataQuery>
<dataStructure>
<group name="G_my_table" source="Q2">
  <element name="Name" value="Name" />
  <element name="Age" value="Age" />
  <element name="Phone" value="Phone" />
</group>
</dataStructure>
</dataTemplate>
And my Day 1, EXCEL output from RTF template should be like this.
Name     Age     Phone
Swapnill     23     12345
For Day 2 my XML file should be like this. With 2 new columns selected in SELECT clause.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<dataTemplate name="XYZ" description="iExpenses Report" Version="1.0">
<dataQuery>
<sqlStatement name="Q2">
<![CDATA[
SELECT Name
,Age
,Phone
,Address
,Salary
FROM my_table
]]>
</sqlStatement>
</dataQuery>
<dataStructure>
<group name="G_my_table" source="Q2">
  <element name="Name" value="Name" />
  <element name="Age" value="Age" />
  <element name="Phone" value="Phone" />
  <element name="Address" value="Address" />
  <element name="Salary" value="Salary" />
</group>
</dataStructure>
</dataTemplate>
And my Day 2, EXCEL output from RTF template should be like this.
Name     Age     Phone     Address     Salary
Swapnill     23     12345         Madrid     100000
Now, I dont know below things.
Make the XML dynamic as in on Day 1 there must be 3 columns in the SELECT statement and on Day 2, 5 columns. I want to create one dynamic XML which should not be required to be changed if new columns are added in my_table. I dont know how to create this query and also create their corresponding elements below.
Make the RTF template dyanamic as in Day1 there must 3 columns in EXCEL output and on Day 2, 5 columns. I want to create a Dynamic RTF template which would show all the columns selected in Dynamic XML.I dont know how the RTF will create new XML tags and how it will know where to place it in the report. Means, I can create RTF template on Day 1, by loading XML data for 3 columns and placing 3 XML tags in template. But how will it create and place tags for new columns on Day 2?
Hope, you got my requirement, its a challenging one. Please let me know how I can implement the required solution using RTF dynamically without any manual intervention.
Regards,
Swapnil K.
Message was edited by: SwapnilK

Answer 1

Hi All,
I am able to fulfil above requirement. Now I am stuck at below point. Need your help!
Is there any way to UPDATE the XML file attached to a Data Definition (XML Publisher > Data Definition) using a standard package or procedure call or may be an API from backend? I am creating an XML dynamically and I want to attach it to its Data Definition programmatically using SQL.
Please let me know if there is any oracle functionality to do this.
If not, please let me know the standard directories on application/database server where the XML files attached to Data Definitions are stored.
For eg, /$APPL_TOP/ar/1.0/sql or something.
Regards,
Swapnil K.