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.

8 thoughts on “Simple Chart from CSV File

  1. rajesh

    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

    Reply
  2. rajesh

    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

    Reply
  3. Pallavi

    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

    Reply

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