NAME

DBIx::Browse::CGI - Perl extension to browse tables with a CGI interface.

SYNOPSIS

 use DBIx::Browse::CGI;
 my ($dbh, $dbb, $q);
 $dbh = DBI->connect("DBI:Pg:dbname=enterprise")
   or croak "Can't connect to database: $@";
$q   = new CGI;
$dbb = new  DBIx::Browse::CGI({
   dbh => $dbh, 
   table => 'employee', 
   proper_fields => [ qw ( name fname ) ],
   linked_fields => [ qw ( department category office ) ], 
   linked_tables => [ qw ( department category office ) ], 
   linked_values => [ qw ( name       name     phone  ) ], 
   linked_refs   => [ qw ( id         id       ide    ) ],
   aliases       => [ qw ( name fname department category phone )],
   primary_key   => 'id',
   cgi           => $q
});
print
   $q->start_html(
                  -title => "Test DBIx::Browse::CGI"
                  );
$dbb->list_form({
   field_order  => [  1,  0,  4,  3,  2 ],
   field_length => [ 14, 15, 15, 15, 10 ]
});

...etc

DESCRIPTION

The purpose of DBIx::Browse::CGI is to handle the browsing of relational tables with a human-like interface via Web.

DBIx::Browse::CGI transparently translates SELECTs, UPDATEs, DELETEs and INSERTs from the desired "human view" to the values needed for the table. This is the case when you have related tables (1 to n) where the detail table has a reference (FOREIGN KEY) to a generic table (i.e. Customers and Bills) with some index (tipically an integer).

METHODS

All the methods inherited from its parent class (DBIX::Browse(3)) plus the following:

new

Creates a new DBIx::Browse::CGI object. The parameters are passed through a hash with the following added keys with respect to DBIx::Browse::new:

cgi

A CGI object that will be used for Web interaction. If it is not defined a new CGI object will be created.

max_rows

The maximum number of rows to be displayed per Web page (default: 10).

max_flength

The maximum field length to be displayed (also the default for unknown field lengths).

default_action

The default action (web page) that will be displayed if not set by the calling program (currently "List" or "Edit".

form_params

A hash ref containing other form parameters that will appear as "HIDDEN" input fields.

styles

An anonymous arrays of css styles ("CLASS") that will be applied to succesive rows of output.

no_print

If set, the output methods (list_form, edit_form, and browse) will not print directly. Instead, they will return a string containig the output (in fact they always do). Otherwise they will print directly to standard output (default: 0).

list_form

This method produces a CGI form suitable to explore the main table. It will list its rows in chunks of max_rows. It will present also the possibility to edit (see edit_form) any row and to filter the rows to display.

It takes one optional parameter with a hash reference with the following keys:

field_names

An array reference containing the field names to be displayed.

field_order

An array reference with the desired order index in wich the fields will appear.

field_length

An array reference with the desired field length.

edit_form

This method produces a CGI form suitable to browse the main table record by record. You can update, delete and insert new records.

It takes one optional parameter with a hash reference with the same structure than list_form.

browse

This method will call list_form or edit_form as needed depending on the user input.

It takes one optional parameter with a hash reference with the same structure than list_form.

AUTHOR

Evilio José del Río Silván, edelrio@icm.csic.es

SEE ALSO

perl(1), DBI(3), CGI(3), DBIx::Browse(3).