Generating files from the PUC with PDI and the CDA plugin

As you know, PDI allows you to generate Excel, CSV, and XML files and starting with the latest version, also JSON files. You do it with a transformation that has to be executed from Spoon or the command line. There is a quicker way to generate those kinds of files in an interactive fashion from the Pentaho User Console (PUC). This recipe teaches you how to do it by using the Community Data Access (CDA) plugin.

You will experiment the CDA Editor and the CDA Previewer for querying the current weather conditions in a given city. Then, you will learn how to export the results to different formats. You will do that from the PUC.

Getting ready

In order to follow this recipe, you will need some experience with the Pentaho BI Server.

Regarding the software, you will need a Pentaho BI Server running. You will also need the CDA plugin. You can download the installer from http://cda.webdetails.org or the source code from http://code.google.com/p...