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Simple Chart from CSV File

There was some requests on the Pentaho Data Integration forums for an example of how to generate a simple chart from a CSV file.

Sometimes people get so lost in the technology, that it’s tough to just do something pretty simple.  I totally get that.  Pentaho still has plenty of room for improvement on the usability, especially for people coming to the platform for the first time.

Well, here tis.

Unzip examplecsv.zip to pentaho-demo/pentaho-solutions/samples/etl/ in the sample server.

Basically, the idea is to turn a csv file (example.csv):

Year,PresentsNickReceived,PresentsRequested
2003,7,4
2004,9,8
2005,8,9
2006,11,8

into this chart

The confusing part, I’m guessing from the thread, was how data gets from KETTLE to PENTAHO.

Not hard at all actually.

Pentaho initiates (ie, calls Kettles API) the Kettle transform and then “slurps” in memory records from a specified step.  It’s the UNIX equivalent of the “tee” utility where you’re just watching data arriving at a certain place.  In this example, I’ve made it even more explicit by naming the “dummy” step “for_pentaho” so that it’s clear the step that Pentaho is “slurping” the data from.

After that, it’s just a matter of building a chart like any other in the platform.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 14th, 2006 at 11:32 pm and is filed under Data Integration (Kettle), How To. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

11 Responses to “Simple Chart from CSV File”

  1. Batman Says:
    December 18th, 2006 at 8:32 am

    Very nice and clear example.

  2. Bafar Says:
    January 24th, 2007 at 5:07 pm

    Thanks for another nice example.
    A great start to play around with the posibilities of the design studio.

  3. rajesh Says:
    November 2nd, 2007 at 4:33 am

    I’m new to ETL and asked by the guys to learn this tool and am now did a few exmpls in pentaho.. created transformation in spoon .. not yet used the pan chef and kitchen. this is a good example.

    rajesh
    Trivandrum
    INDIA

  4. rajesh Says:
    November 2nd, 2007 at 4:34 am

    I’m new to ETL and asked by the guys to learn this tool and am now did a few exmpls in pentaho.. created transformation in spoon .. not yet used the pan chef and kitchen.

    rajesh
    Trivandrum
    INDIA

  5. Pallavi Says:
    February 6th, 2008 at 4:53 pm

    Is this example supposed to work on 1.6 GA version of BI Suite too? I do get a successful status on top and the field names but there is no chart. Am I missing something?

    Thanks

  6. Dashboard Analyzer Says:
    March 26th, 2008 at 2:53 pm

    Thanks for that

  7. Pravin Says:
    May 11th, 2008 at 11:31 pm

    Very good and useful site abt open source users in BI.Really helpful and guiding to new users.
    Thnks
    Pravin……!

  8. kitchens Says:
    May 12th, 2008 at 10:38 pm

    The simplest ideas can often be the best.

  9. Social Marketplace Says:
    May 25th, 2008 at 10:50 pm

    Nice article Nicholas. Thanks for sharing.

  10. Multichart Review Says:
    May 27th, 2008 at 5:08 pm

    I guess this is one of those things that it would be cool to do, but us lazy folk just go out and buy excel lol

  11. Forex Auto Pilot Says:
    June 9th, 2008 at 3:21 pm

    Thanks a lot for this useful tip for drawing charts using from data in Kettle.

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