[rt-users] straight SQL pull VS html parse

[Gabriel Cadieux]

hi all,

i need to find out what would be simpler for me to accomplish;

i require the ability to take certain (most, not all) information
from an RT ticket and generate a printer-friendly, restructured
version of the information with a nice header and all.. basically
i need to get the info from inside the fields out and do what i want
with it (i.e. generate my own printable form so it doesn't look like
it looks in RT, but rather how i want to make it look, which would
probably be some custom html)..

now, my question to any experts out there is:

would it be easier to query the RT SQL database directly to pull out
the info by using the ticket number as a main query item (forgive me
if i'm not using the right terms, i'm an SQL newb, but i know relational
databases can get info by using one or more fields together to reference
other info through SQL queries), and if so, how would i find out what the
proper SQL statement, including table names, etc.. is?

or,

would it be easier to parse the html that RT spits out with this info already
in it, say using perl or something, and then generate my own html from this
rather than going directly to the DB?

i mean.. surely there must be a way to trick RT into spitting out the exact SQL
query it uses to get each field in a ticket.., in which case it would be easier
to do it the first way.. but if it's too hard and i'll have to break my head open
trying to make 20-line queries manually, i think i'd rather just learn some perl
parsing stuff and create something that can interpret RT's output and translate it
to a new format.

thanks for all your help.

Gabriel Cadieux
Systems Engineer & IT Security Analyst
STI - Secure Technologies International, Inc.
Tel. (613) 830-3131 ext. 304
Cel. (613) 608-4635
Fax. (613) 830-5320
www.securetechnologies.ca