NAME
Apache::GD::Graph - Generate Charts in an Apache handler.
SYNOPSIS
In httpd.conf:
PerlModule Apache::GD::Graph
SetHandler perl-script
PerlHandler Apache::GD::Graph
# These are optional.
PerlSetVar Expires 30 # days.
PerlSetVar CacheSize 5242880 # 5 megs.
Then send requests to:
`http://www.server.com/chart?type=lines&x_labels=[1st,2nd,3rd,4t
h,5th]&data1=[1,2,3,4,5]&data2=[6,7,8,9,10]&dclrs=[blue,yellow,g
reen]'
INSTALLATION
Like any other CPAN module, if you are not familiar with CPAN
modules, see:
http://www.cpan.org/doc/manual/html/pod/perlmodinstall.html .
DESCRIPTION
The primary purpose of this module is to allow a very easy to
use, lightweight and fast charting capability for static pages,
dynamic pages and CGI scripts, with the chart creation process
abstracted and placed on any server.
For example, embedding a pie chart can be as simple as:
And it gets cached both server side, and along any proxies to
the client, and on the client's browser cache. Not to mention,
chart generation is very fast.
It is implemented as a simple Apache mod_perl handler that
generates and returns a png format graph (using Martien
Verbruggen's GD::Graph module) based on the arguments passed in
via a query string. It responds with the content-type
"image/png" directly, and sends a Expires: header of 30 days (or
whatever is set via `PerlSetVar Expires', in days) ahead. In
addition, it keeps a server-side cache in the file system using
DeWitt Clinton's File::Cache module, whose size can be specified
via `PerlSetVar CacheSize' in bytes.
OPTIONS
type Type of graph to generate, can be lines, bars, points,
linespoints, area, mixed, pie. For a description of
these, see the GD::Graph(3) manpage. Can also be one of
the 3d types if GD::Graph3d is installed, or anything
else with prefix GD::Graph::.
width Width of graph in pixels, 400 by default.
height Height of graph in pixels, 300 by default.
For the following, look at the plot method in the GD::Graph(3)
manpage.
x_labels
Labels used on the X axis, the first array given to the
plot method of GD::Graph.
dataN Values to plot, where N is a number starting with 1. Can be
given any number of times with N increasing.
ALL OTHER OPTIONS are passed as a hash to the GD::Graph set
method using the following rules for the values:
undef Becomes a real undef.
[one,two,3]
Becomes an array reference.
{one,1,two,2}
Becomes a hash reference.
http://somewhere/file.png
Is pulled into a file and the file name is passed to the
respective option. (Can be any scheme besides http://
that LWP::Simple supports.)
AUTHOR
Rafael Kitover (caelum@debian.org)
COPYRIGHT
This program is Copyright (c) 2000 by Rafael Kitover. This
program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the same terms as Perl itself.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This module owes its existance, obviously, to the availability
of the wonderful GD::Graph module from Martien Verbruggen.
Thanks to my employer, marketingmoney.com, for allowing me to
work on projects as free software.
Thanks to Vivek Khera for the bug fixes.
BUGS
Probably a few.
TODO
More extensive test suite. Need to be easily able to generate
graphs without axes.
SEE ALSO
the perl manpage, the GD::Graph manpage, the GD manpage