The report is a Microsoft Excel template file with *.xlt extension that contains specific parse phrases which are processed by an interpreter. When a report is performed the service extracts data from the PHD server and fills the report with it. The syntax and the performed operations are described in the next section.

In the next figure is shown a typical example of report template. The cells starting with $$ will be processed by the interpreter when the report is called.

Figure 7 - Sample report template

After the report is generated the cells which started with \$\$ in the figure above are now filled with data from the PHD server. The result after calling the report is shown below.

Figure 8 - Result of the sample report

Performed Operations

The interpreter supports several operations for handling data. The cells of a template file which are defined as parse phrases, describe the information that needs to be extracted. Process data is contained in PHD tags and interpreter's function is to extract the required data, as specified in the parse phrases, and to fill the report template with it. The syntax of parse phrases and the possible operations are described further in this chapter.

Parse Phrase Structure

The term "parse phrase" always applies to a whole cell. If the cell starts with $$ its whole content will be interpreted as a parse phrase. A parse phrase consists of fields and operators. The operators are always preceded by a field. The number of fields and operators used is unlimited. On the other hand a field consist of keys and delimiters.

Figure 9 - Parse phrase