Simplify Filling in Forms

The object-oriented approach allows you to use the DOM fill method to simplify form-based reporting. The fill method is intended for instances of classes derived from the mlreportgen.dom.Document or mlreportgen.dom.DocumentPart class. It assumes that for each hole in a document or document part template, the derived class defines a method having this signature:

     fillHoleID(obj)

The HoleID part of the signature is the ID of a hole defined by the document or document part template. The obj argument is an instance of the derived class. For example, supposed that a template defines a hole named Author. Then the derived class defines a method name fillAuthor to fill the Author hole. Assuming that the derived class defines methods for filling the holes, the fill method moves from the first hole in the document or part to the last, invoking the corresponding fillHoleID method to fill each hole.

The fill method eliminates the need for a report program to loop explicitly through the holes in a document or document part’s template. The report need only invoke the document or part fill method. For example, suppose that you have derived a report class, name MyReport, from the mlreportgen.dom.Document class and that this derived class defines methods for each of the holes defined by the report template, based on data supplied in its constructor. Then, you need only three lines to generate an instance of MyReport:

function makeReport(rptdata)
rpt = MyReport(rptdata);
fill(rpt);
close(rpt);

For an example of a forms-based, object-oriented report program, in the Examples pane of the MATLAB^® Report Generator™ documentation, open the Object-Oriented Report example.