libopenoffice-oodoc-perl 2.125-3 / usr / share / perl5 / OpenOffice / OODoc.pod

=head1	NAME

OpenOffice::OODoc - The Perl Open OpenDocument Connector

=head1	SYNOPSIS

	use OpenOffice::OODoc;

			# get global access to the content of an ODF file
	my $document = odfDocument(file => "MyFile.odt");
			# select a text element containing a given string
	my $place = $document->selectElementByContent("my search string");
			# insert a new text element before the selected one
	my $newparagraph = $document->insertParagraph
			(
			$place,
			position	=> 'before',
			text		=> 'A new paragraph to be inserted',
			style		=> 'Text body'
			);
			# define a new graphic style, to display images
			# with 20% extra luminance and color inversion
	$document->createImageStyle
			(
			"NewImageStyle",
			properties	=>
				{
				'draw:luminance'	=> '20%',
				'draw:color-inversion'	=> 'true'
				}
			);
			# import an image from an external file, attach it
			# to the newly inserted paragraph, to be displayed
			# using the newly created style
	$document->createImageElement
			(
			"Image1",
			style		=> "NewImageStyle",
			attachment	=> $newparagraph,
			import		=> "D:\Images\Landscape.jpg"
			);
			# save the modified document
	$document->save;

=head1	DESCRIPTION

This toolbox is an extensible Perl interface allowing direct read/write
operations on files which comply with the OASIS Open Document Format for
Office Applications (ODF), i.e. the ISO/IEC 26300:2006 standard.

It provides a high-level, document-oriented language, and isolates the
programmer from the details of the file format. It can process different
document classes (texts, spreadsheets, presentations, and drawings).
It can retrieve or update styles and images, document metadata, as well as
text content.

OpenOffice::OODoc is designed for data retrieval and update in existing
documents, as well as full document generation.

=head1	HOW TO USE THE DOCUMENTATION

The present chapter, then the OpenOffice::OODoc::Intro one, should be
read before any attempt to dig in the detailed documentation.

The reference manual is provided in several separate chapters as
described below.

The OpenOffice::OODoc documentation, as the API itself, is distributed
amongst several manual pages on a thematic and technical basis. The present
section is a general foreword.

Each manual page corresponds to a Perl module, with the exception of
OpenOffice::OODoc::Intro. It's strongly recommended to have a look at the
Intro before any other manual chapter, in order to get a quick and practical
knowledge of the big picture. Another possible introductory reading has been
published in The Perl Review (issue #3.1, dec. 2006)
L<http://www.theperlreview.com>, while an alternative presentation article,
intended for French-reading users, can be downloaded at
L<http://jean.marie.gouarne.online.fr/doc/perl_odf_connector.pdf>

The API is object-oriented and, with the exception of the main module
(OpenOffice::OODoc itself), each module defines a class. The features of each
module are documented in a manual page with the same name. But, while some
classes inherit from other ones, they bring a lot of features that are not
documented in the corresponding manual page. The best example is
OpenOffice::OODoc::Document: it contains a few method definitions by itself,
but it's the most powerful class, because it inherits from four other classes,
so its features are documented in five manual pages. Fortunately, the classes
are defined on a functional basis. So, for example, to know the text-related
capabilities of a Document object, the user should select the Text manual page
before the Document one.

The detailed documentation of the API is distributed according to the
following list:

=head2	OpenOffice::OODoc

The present manual page contains (in the GENERAL FUNCTIONS section below) the
description of a small number of miscellaneous functions, dedicated to control
some general parameters, to create the main objects of the applications, or to
provide the user with some basic utilities. It introduces the main object
constructors, namely odfContainer(), odfDocument() and odfMeta().

=head2	OpenOffice::OODoc::File

This manual page contains detailed information about the physical access to
the ODF containers, i.e. the multipart, compressed files that contain the
documents.

In some simple applications, this page can be ignored without risk.

=head2	OpenOffice::OODoc::XPath

It describes all the common features, that are provided by the corresponding
class, and available in every other class with the exception of OODoc::File.
This page is so called because it essentially relies on XPath expressions to
select the various document elements. However, beyond the XPath-based retrieval
features, it allows the user to update, create, or delete any element.

This manual page describes the common XML toolbox of OpenOffice::OODoc. It
allows almost everything, and it may be appropriate for XML- and XPath-aware
users who have some knowledge of the Open Document Format. On the other hand,
it covers only the low level part of the API. 

The high level part of OpenOffice::OODoc is covered by the ::Text, ::Image,
::Styles, ::Document and ::Meta manual chapters. However, the user should
remember that ::XPath describes some common features which are not redundantly
documented in the high level chapters , so this manual page can be useful even
if the user don't need to work with explicit XPath expressions.

Note: by "high level", I don't suggest that OpenOffice::OODoc provides any
stratospheric functionality. The "high level" API is a set of frequently needed
features that are implemented in order to be used without knowledge of the ODF
storage structure and without XML familiarity. The following example, that
retrieves a section in a text document according to its name, illustrates the
difference: while both return the same result, the second instruction, which is
mnemonic and largely self-documented, belongs to a higher level than the first
one:

        $section = $doc->getElement('//text:section[@text:name="Foo"]');
        $section = $doc->getSection("Foo");

=head2	OpenOffice::OODoc::Text

This manual page describes all the high level text processing methods and
allows the user's program to deal with all the text containers (headers,
paragraphs, item lists, tables, and footnotes). OpenOffice::OODoc::Text is
dedicated to the text content and structure of any kind of document, and *NOT*
to the so-called "text documents". As a consequence, this chapter describes
all the methods which process ODF text containers in spreadsheets and
presentations as well as in text documents.

The set of covered text objects includes all the markup elements that may be
inserted within paragraphs, such as variable text fields, notes, bibliography
entries, bookmarks, index entries, text runs with special styles, hyperlinks,
etc.

Whatever the document class, the ::Text part of OpenOffice::OODoc may apply to
some style definitions, too. For example, a page style may specify a header
and/or a footer that may contain paragraphs and other text elements.

=head2	OpenOffice::OODoc::Image

This manual page describes all the graphics manipulation API, i.e. all the
available syntax dedicated to insert or remove images in the documents, and
to control the presentation of these images.

Note that OpenOffice::OODoc does *NOT* include any graphical processing API; it
just deals with the Open Document way to include and display images. It allows,
for example, to control the color correction and the display size of an image in
the context of a particular document, but not to change the image itself.

=head2	OpenOffice::OODoc::Styles

This manual page describes the methods to be used to control the styles
of a document, knowing that each page layout, each text element, and each
image is displayed or printed according to a style. This part of the
documentation can be ignored if the user's programs are strictly content-
focused and don't care with the presentation.

Note that some style definitions, such as master pages, can include text
containers or images, which can be processed through methods provides by
OpenOffice::OODoc::Text or OpenOffice::OODoc::Image.

=head2	OpenOffice::OODoc::Document

This manual page describe some miscellaneous methods that deal simultaneously
with text, presentation and/or images. So, in order to discover the capabilities
of a "Document" object (created with ooDocument), the user should use the Text,
Image, Styles AND Document manual pages. The OpenOffice::OODoc::Document class
inherits all the features provided by the other classes with the exceptions of
OpenOffice::OODoc::File and OpenOffice::OODoc::Meta.

=head2	OpenOffice::OODoc::Meta

This manual page describes all the available methods to be used in order to
control the global properties (or "metadata") of a document. Most of these
properties are those an end-user can get or set through the "File/Properties"
command with the OpenOffice.org desktop software.

=head2	OpenOffice::OODoc::Manifest

This manual page describes the manifest management API, knowing that the
manifest, in an ODF file, contains the list of the file components
(or "members") and the media type (or MIME) of each one. The text content,
the style definitions, the embedded images, etc. are each one stored as a
separate "member".

=head1	GENERAL FUNCTIONS (EXPORTED)

=head3	odfConnector()

	Synonym: odfDocument()

=head3	odfContainer($filename)

	Shortcut for OpenOffice::OODoc::File->new().

	This function returns a File object, that is the object representation
	of the physical package containing the text, the images and the style
	definitions of an ODF document.

	See the OpenOffice::OODoc::File manual page for detailed syntax.
	See the OpenOffice::OODoc::Intro manual page to know why, in some
	situations, the using applications need or don't need to deal with
	explicit File objects.

	Synonyms: odfFile(), odfPackage().

=head3	odfDecodeText($ootext)

	Returns the translation of a raw ODF (UTF-8) string in the local character
	set. While the right translation is automatically done by the regular text
	read/write methods of OpenOffice::OODoc, this function is useful only if
	the user's application needs to bypass the API.

=head3	odfDocument()

	Shortcut for OpenOffice::OODoc::Document->new().

	This function is the most general document constructor. It creates
	and returns a new Document object. It can be instantiated on the basis of
	an existing ODF file, or using XML, OpenDocument-compliant data previously
	loaded in memory. With an appropriate "create" parameter, it can be used
	in order to create a new document from scratch as well. The Document class
	provides methods allowing a lot of read/update operations in the text
	content, the graphics, and the presentation. So ooDocument() is the
	recommended first call to get access to a document for further processing.

	See the OpenOffice::OODoc::Document manual page for detailed syntax.


=head3	odfEncodeText($ootext)

	Returns the translation of an application-provided string,
	made of local characters, in an ODF-compliant (UTF-8) string.
	The given string must comply with the active local encoding (see
	odfLocalEncoding()). While the right translation is automatically done
	by the regular text read/write methods of OpenOffice::OODoc, this
	function is useful only if the user's application needs to bypass the
	API.

=head3	odfFile($filename)

	Synonyms: odfContainer(), odfPackage().

=head3	odfImage()

	Shortcut for OpenOffice::OODoc::Image->new().

	Generally not used explicitly by the applications.

	This function returns a document object whose features are related to
	image element processing, which is a subset of the Document object.

	See the OpenOffice::OODoc::Image manual page for detailed syntax.

=head3	odfLocalEncoding([character_set])

	Accessor to get/set the user's local character set
	(see $OpenOffice::OODoc::XPath::LOCAL_CHARSET in the
	OpenOffice::OODoc::XPath man page).

	Example:

		$old_charset = odfLocalEncoding();
		odfLocalEncoding('iso-8859-15');

	If the given argument is an unsupported encoding, an error
	message is produced and the old encoding is preserved. So
	this accessor is safer than a direct update of the
	$OpenOffice::OODoc::XPath::LOCAL_CHARSET variable.

	The default local character set is fixed according to the
	"OODoc/config.xml" file of your local OpenOffice::OODoc installation
	(see readConfig() below), or to "iso-8859-1" if this file is missing
	or doesn't say anything about the local character set. By calling
	ooLocalEncoding() with an argument, the user's programs can override
	this default.

	Note: the user can override this setting for a particular document,
	using the 'local_encoding' property of the document object (see the
	OpenOffice::OODoc::XPath manual page).

	See the Encode::Supported (Perl) documentation for the list
	of supported encodings.

=head3	odfLocaltime()

	Converts the numeric time given in argument to an ISO-8601 date
	(aaaa-mm-jjThh:mm:ss), knowing that this format is required for
	the stored content of any ODF-compliant date element or attribute.
	
	The argument type is the same as for the standard Perl localtime()
	function, i.e. a number of seconds since the "epoch". It can be, for
	example, a value previously returned by a time() call.

	Without argument, returns the current local time in ISO-8601 format.

	Beware: The resolution of this function is limited to the second,
	unlike the ISO-8601 standard which supports an optional subsecond
	field.

=head3	odfManifest()

	Short cut for OpenOffice::OODoc::Manifest->new().

	This function returns a Manifest object, giving access to the
	meta-information of the physical archive containing the document.

=head3	odfMeta()

	Shortcut for OpenOffice::OODoc::Meta->new().

	This function returns a Meta object. Such an object represents the
	global properties, or "metadata", of a document. It brings a set of
	accessors allowing the user to get or set some properties such as
	the title, the keyword, the description, the creator, etc.

	See the OpenOffice::OODoc::Meta manual page for details.

=head3	odfPackage($filename)

	Synonyms: odfContainer(), odfFile().

=head3	odfReadConfig([filename])

	Creates or resets some variables of the API according to the
	content of an XML configuration file. Without argument, this
	function looks for 'OODoc/config.xml' under the installation
	directory of OpenOffice::OODoc. In any case, the provided file
	must have the same XML structure as the config.xml file included
	in the distribution, so:

	<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
	<config>
	    <OpenOffice-OODoc>
		<XPath-LOCAL_CHARSET>my_charset</XPath-LOCAL_CHARSET>
		<Styles-COLORMAP>my_colormap_file</Styles-COLORMAP>
		<File-WORKING_DIRECTORY>my_path</File-WORKING_DIRECTORY>
		<File-DEFAULT_OFFICE_FORMAT>2</File-DEFAULT_OFFICE_FORMAT>
		<BUILD_DATE>cpan_package_build_date</BUILD_DATE>
		<INSTALLATION_DATE>my_installation_date</INSTALLATION_DATE>
	    </OpenOffice-OODoc>
	</config>

	In the example above, "my_oo_date" should be replaced by a regular
	ISO-8601 date (YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss).

	Elements out of the <OpenOffice-OODoc> element are ignored.
	Any element included in <OpenOffice-OODoc> sets or update a variable
	with the same name and the given value in the space of the
	OpenOffice::OODoc package. So, for example an element like

		<strange_thing>a strange value</strange_thing>

	will make a new $OpenOffice::OODoc::strange_thing variable,
	initialized with the string "a strange value", available for any
	program using OpenOffice::OODoc.

	Attributes and sub-elements are ignored.

	Strings with characters larger than 7 bits must be encoded in UTF-8.

	Any '-' character appearing in the name of an element is replaced
	by '::' in the name of the corresponding variable, so, for example,
	the <XPath-LOCAL_CHARSET> element controls the initial value of
	$OpenOffice::OODoc::XPath::LOCAL_CHARSET.

	All the variables defined in this file, are the file itself, are
	optional.

	The <INSTALLATION_DATE> element is not used by the API; it's provided
	for information only. It allows the user to get (in OpenOffice format)
	the date of the last installation of OpenOffice::OODoc, through the
	variable $OpenOffice::OODoc::INSTALLATION_DATE. In the default
	config.xml provided with the distribution, this element contains the
	package generation date.

	The <BUILD_DATE> element is the date of the CPAN package.

	This function is automatically executed as soon as OpenOffice::OODoc
	is used, if the OODoc/config.xml configuration file exists.

=head3	odfStyles()

	Shortcut for OpenOffice::OODoc::Styles->new().

	Generally not used explicitly by the applications.

	This function returns a Styles object, that brings a subset of the
	Document object. In can be used in place of odfDocument() if the
	calling application needs some style/presentation manipulation
	methods only. Note the 's' at the end of 'Styles': this object doesn't
	represent a particular style; it represents a set of styles related
	to a document.

	See the OpenOffice:OODoc::Styles manual page for detailed syntax.

=head3	odfTemplatePath([path])

	Shortcut for OpenOffice::OODoc::File::templatePath().

	Accessor to get/set an alternative path for the ODF template files
	used to create new documents.

	The template path must designate a directory containing 4 regular
	ODF files, each one corresponding to an supported ODF document class,
	i.e. "template.odt", "template.ods", "template.odp", "template.odg".

=head3	odfText()

	Shortcut for OpenOffice::OODoc::Text->new().

	Generally not used explicitly by the applications.

	This function returns a Text object, that brings a subset ot the
	Document object. It can be used in place of ooDocument() if the
	calling application is only text-focused (i.e. if it doesn't need
	to deal with graphics and styles). The processed document can contain
	(and probably contains) graphics and styles, but the methods to
	process them are simply not loaded.

	See the OpenOffice::OODoc::Text manual page for detailed syntax.

=head3	odfTimelocal()

	Translates an ODF-formatted date (ISO-8601) into a regular Perl
	numeric time format, i.e. a number of seconds since the "epoch". So,
	the returned value can be processed with any Perl date formatting or
	calculation function.

	Example:

		my $date_created = odfTimelocal($meta->creation_date());
		$lt = localtime($date_created);
		$elapsed = time() - $date_created;
		print "This document has been created $date_created\n";
		print "$elapsed seconds ago";
	
	This sequence prints the creation date of a document in local time
	string format, then prints the number of seconds between the creation
	date and now. Note that the creation_date() method used here works
	with the meta-data document part only (see OpenOffice::OODoc::Meta for
	details about this method).

	Note: This function requires the Time::Local Perl module.

=head3	odfWorkingDirectory([path])

	Accessor to get/set the working directory to use for temporary
	files. Short-lived temporary files are generated each time the save()
	function (see OpenOffice::OOdoc::File) is called. If case of success,
	these files are automatically removed when the call returns, so the
	user can't view them. If something goes wrong during the I/O
	processing, the temporary files remain available for debugging. In any
	case, a working directory is necessary to create or update documents.
	However, OpenOffice::OODoc can be used without available working
	directory in a read-only application.

	The default working directory depends on the "OODoc/config.xml" file
	of your local OpenOffice::OODoc installation. If this file is missing
	or if it doesn't contain a <File-WORKING_DIRECTORY> element, the
	working directory is "." (i.e. the current working directory of the
	user's application).

	If an argument is given, it replaces the current working
	directory.

	A warning is issued if the (existing or newly set) path is not
	a directory with write permission. After this warning, the user's
	application can run, but any attempted file update or creation
	fails.

	This accessor sets only the default working directory for the
	application. A special, separate working directory can be set
	for each OOo document (see the manual page for OpenOffice::OODoc::File
	for details, if needed).

	CAUTION: a odfWorkingDirectory() call can't change the working
	directory of a previously created File object. So, consider the
	following code sequence:

		my $doc0 = ooDocument(file => 'doc0.odt');
		odfWorkingDirectory('C:\TMP');
		my $doc1 = ooDocument(file => 'doc1.odt');

	In this example, all the write operations related to the $doc0
	document will use the default working directory, while the ones
	related to $doc1 will use "C:\TMP".

=head3	odfXPath()

	Shortcut for OpenOffice::OODoc::XPath->new().

	Generally not used explicitly by the applications.

	This function returns an XPath object, that brings all the low level
	XML navigation, retrieve, read and write methods of the API. The XPath
	class (in the OpenOffice::OODoc context) is an OpenOffice-aware
	wrapper for the general XML::Twig API. Unless you are a very advanced
	user and you have a particular hack in mind, you should never need to
	explicitly create an XPath object. But you must know that every method
	or property of this class is inherited by the Text, Image, Styles,
	Document and Meta objects. So the knowledge of the corresponding
	manual page could be useful.

	See the OpenOffice::OODoc::XPath manual page for detailed syntax.

=head3	ooDocument()

	Synonyms: odfDocument(), odfConnector().

=head3	ooDecodeText()

	See odfDecodeText().

=head3	ooEncodeText()

	See odfEncodeText().

=head3	ooFile($filename)

	Synonyms: odfContainer(), odfPackage(), odfFile().

=head3	ooImage()

	Synonym: odfImage().

=head3	ooLocalEncoding()

	See odfLocalEncoding().

=head3	ooLocaltime([$time_value])

	See odfLocaltime()

=head3	ooManifest()

	Synonym: odfManifest().

=head3	ooMeta()

	Synonym: odfMeta().

=head3	ooReadConfig()

	See odfReadConfig().

=head3	ooStyles()

	Synonym: odfStyles().

=head3	ooTemplatePath()

	See odfTemplatePath().

=head3	ooText()

	Synonym: odfText().

=head3	ooTimelocal($oodate)

	See odfTimelocal()

=head3	ooWorkingDirectory()

	See odfWorkingDirectory().

=head3	ooXPath()

	Synonym: odfXPath().

=head1	AUTHOR/COPYRIGHT

Developer/Maintainer: Jean-Marie Gouarne L<http://jean.marie.gouarne.online.fr>

Contact: jmgdoc@cpan.org

Copyright 2004-2008 by Genicorp, S.A. L<http://www.genicorp.com>

Initial English version of the reference manual by Graeme A. Hunter
(graeme.hunter@zen.co.uk).

License: GNU Lesser General Public License v2.1

=cut