Jason Bennett's Developer Corner

FusionCharts PL/SQL API

Generate FusionCharts Flash Charts with Oracle PL/SQL

(Supports both FusionCharts Free and FusionCharts V3)

Since Flash charts have become the norm for delivering visual data to our endusers in a browser based environment, I thought it would be cool to create a method for delivering both the physical flash object and the dataset for that chart straight from the database using PL/SQL. I chose a product called FusionCharts (http://www.fusioncharts.com) as my Flash chart (binary object) provider. The API supports both FusionCharts Free and FusionCharts V3 (commercial). FusionCharts Free comes with 22 fully functional (free) charts of varying types from the basic charts to combination charts in both 2D and 3D formats. Fusion Charts V3 comes with 37 charts and a wide variety of options. Each chart type requires a specifically formatted XML data set. The PL/SQL API I have developed makes it easy for a developer to store and deploy these flash charts directly from the Oracle database and to create dynamic data sets for each chart type directly from the database. Even though the API allows for “one stop shopping” with regard to chart object loading and data set generation, developers can also use this API solely for data set generation. This makes it easy to integrate data from Oracle databases into existing applications that use FusionCharts. The API come bundled with all 22 FusionCharts Free chart binaries and all 37 (trial version) of the FusionCharts V3 chart binaries.

For complete PL/SQL API documentation including sample code, see the following document (opens in new window):Generate Flash Charts with PLSQL

The PL/SQL API can be downloaded here:FusionChartsPLSQL.zip

FusionCharts Free can be downloaded here:FusionCharts Free

The following chart was generated using the PL/SQL API. Everything from rendering the HTML to streaming the Flash Object to generating the XML data set was accomplished using the API :

HRChartsDemo_OfficesByCtry