[Melbourne-pm] Looping with HTML::Template

[Mathew Robertson]

> Further to the thread about the sub called 'Strange things about '0'.
> I have the section of Perl below to build up an array of hashes that 
> will get used by HTML::Template after sql_engine finishes.
> At the moment it is hardcoded to only produce 6 fields in the row.
>
> How do I make the .html file flexible so that in the Perl code I can 
> replace the 6 with a variable like $Num_of_fields allowing me to 
> choose at run time how wide the HTML table is?
> Or is there a different module/technique I should use to get this type 
> of functionality?
>
> BTW: That 'FooCode' field below is where one of values of foocode from 
> the other thread will appear and may get filtered on.
>
> sub sql_engine {
>    .
>    .
>    .
>    elsif ($ret_type eq 'array_hash') {
>        my $cnt = 0;
>        my @loop_data;
>        while (my @data = $report->fetchrow_array) {
>            my $cell = 0; # This number is used as a temp variable name 
> in the .html file
>            my %row_data; # use a hash to hold the data for each row 
> that HTML::Template will display.
>            # populate the hash.
>            while ($cell < 6) {
>                $row_data{$cell} = shift @data;
>                $cell++;                         }
>            push (@loop_data, \%row_data);
>            $cnt++;
>        }
>        $report->finish();
>        $dbh->disconnect;
>        return \@loop_data;          }
>
> Contents of the .html file
>
>    <table border =1 cellpadding = 4 cellspacing =0>
>        <tr>
>            <th bgcolor =#fffbc6>Model</th>
>            <th bgcolor =#fffbc6>Serial Number</th>
>            <th bgcolor =#fffbc6>Customer Number</th>
>            <th bgcolor =#fffbc6>Asset ID</th>
>            <th bgcolor =#fffbc6>FooCode</th>
>            <th bgcolor =#fffbc6>Standard Code</th>
>        </tr>
>        <TMPL_LOOP NAME='blankassets'>
>            <tr>
>                <td><TMPL_VAR name="0"></td>
>                <td><TMPL_VAR name="1"></td>
>                <td><TMPL_VAR name="2"></td>
>                <td><TMPL_VAR name="3"></td>
>                <td><TMPL_VAR name="4"></td>
>                <td><TMPL_VAR name="5"></td>
>            </tr>
>        </TMPL_LOOP>
>    </table>
The simplest solution (albeit, not elegant...) is that the template 
needs to check if the TMPL_VAR is defined for that cell, as in:

   <TMPL_LOOP ...>
      <TMPL_IF name="0"><td><TMPL_VAR name=""></td></TMPL_IF>
      ... and so on...
   </TMPL_LOOP>

Mathew