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<!DOCTYPE document PUBLIC "-//APACHE//DTD Documentation V1.1//EN" "../dtd/document-v11.dtd">

<document>
  <header>
   <title>Record Generator HOWTO</title>
   <authors>
    <person email="user@poi.apache.org" name="Glen Stampoultzis" id="glens"/>
    <person email="acoliver@apache.org" name="Andrew C. Oliver" id="acoliver"/>
   </authors>
  </header>
  <body>
    <section><title>How to Use the Record Generator</title>

    <section><title>History</title>
        <p>
        The record generator was born from frustration with translating
        the Excel records to Java classes.  Doing this manually is a time
        consuming process.  It's also very easy to make mistakes.
        </p>
        <p>
        A utility was needed to take the defintition of what a
        record looked like and do all the boring and repetitive work.
        </p>
    </section>

    <section><title>Capabilities</title>
    <p>
        The record generator takes XML as input and produces the following
        output:
    </p>
    <ul>
        <li>A Java file capabile of decoding and encoding the record.</li>
        <li>A test class that provides a fill-in-the-blanks implementation
            of a test case for ensuring the record operates as
            designed.</li>
    </ul>
    </section>
    <section><title>Usage</title>
        <p>
            The record generator is invoked as an Ant target
            (generate-records).  It goes through looking for all files in
            <code>src/records/defintitions</code> ending with _record.xml.
            It then creates two files; the Java record definition and the
            Java test case template.
        </p>
        <p>
            The records themselves have the following general layout:
        </p>
        <source><![CDATA[
<record id="0x1032" name="Frame" package="org.apache.poi.hssf.record"
        excel-record-id="FRAME">
    <description>The frame record indicates whether there is a border
                 around the displayed text of a chart.</description>
    <author>Glen Stampoultzis (glens at apache.org)</author>
    <fields>
        <field type="int" size="2" name="border type">
            <const name="regular" value="0" description="regular rectangle or no border"/>
            <const name="shadow" value="1" description="rectangle with shadow"/>
        </field>
        <field type="int" size="2" name="options">
            <bit number="0" name="auto size"
               description="excel calculates the size automatically if true"/>
            <bit number="1" name="auto position"
               description="excel calculates the position automatically"/>
        </field>
    </fields>
</record>
        ]]></source>
        <p>
            The following table details the allowable types and sizes for
            the fields.
        </p>
        <table>
            <tr>
                <th>Type</th>
                <th>Size</th>
                <th>Java Type</th>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <td>int</td>
                <td>1</td>
                <td>byte</td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <td>int</td>
                <td>2</td>
                <td>short</td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <td>int</td>
                <td>4</td>
                <td>int</td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <td>int</td>
                <td>8</td>
                <td>long</td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <td>int</td>
                <td>varword</td>
                <td>array of shorts</td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <td>bits</td>
                <td>1</td>
                <td>A byte comprising of a bits (defined by the bit element)
                    </td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <td>bits</td>
                <td>2</td>
                <td>An short comprising of a bits</td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <td>bits</td>
                <td>4</td>
                <td>A int comprising of a bits</td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <td>float</td>
                <td>8</td>
                <td>double</td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <td>hbstring</td>
                <td>java expression</td>
                <td>String</td>
            </tr>
        </table>
        <p>
            The Java records are regenerated each time the record generator is 
            run, however the test stubs are only created if the test stub does 
            not already exist.  What this means is that you may change test 
            stubs but not the generated records.
        </p>
    </section>
    <section><title>Custom Field Types</title>
        <p>
            Occationally the builtin types are not enough.  More control
            over the encoding and decoding of the streams is required.  This
            can be achieved using a custom type.
        </p>
        <p>
            A custom type lets you escape to java to define the way in which
            the field encodes and decodes.  To code a custom type you
            declare your field like this:
        </p>
        <source><![CDATA[
    <field type="custom:org.apache.poi.hssf.record.LinkedDataFormulaField"
        size="var" name="formula of link" description="formula"/>
        ]]></source>
        <p>
            Where the class name specified after <code>custom:</code> is a
            class implementing the interface <code>CustomField</code>.
        </p>
        <p>
            You can then implement the encoding yourself.
        </p>
    </section>
    <section><title>How it Works</title>
        <p>
            The record generation works by taking an XML file and styling it 
            using XLST.  Given that XSLT is a little limited in some ways it was 
            necessary to add a little Java code to the mix.   
        </p>
        <p>
            See record.xsl, record_test.xsl, FieldIterator.java, 
            RecordUtil.java, RecordGenerator.java
        </p>
        <p>
            There is a corresponding &quot;type&quot; generator for HWPF.
            See the HWPF documentation for details.
        </p>
    </section>
    <section><title>Limitations</title>
        <p>
            The record generator does not handle all possible record types and
            goes not intend to perform this function.  When dealing with a
            non-standard record sometimes the cost-benifit of coding the
            record by hand will be greater than attempting modify the
            generator.  The main point of the record generator is to save
            time, so keep that in mind.
        </p>
        <p>
            Currently the the XSL file that generates the record calls out to 
            Java objects.  The Java code for the record generation is
            currently quite messy with minimal comments.  
        </p>
    </section>
</section>
</body>
</document>
