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If you’ve read Joe Gregorio’s Sparklines in data: URIs in Python, then you know that he’s presented us with an incredibly compelling use for data: URIs. Namely, this is not an external file: But we don’t have Python’s image library, so what are we to do?

What if I offered you a handful of code that could generate inline sparkgraphs without library code? Presenting Bumpspark.

 def bumpspark( results )
     white, red, grey = [0xFF,0xFF,0xFF], [0,0,0xFF], [0x99,0x99,0x99]
     ibmp = results.inject([]) do |ary, r|
         ary << [white]*15 << [white]*15
         ary.last[r/9,4] = [(r > 50 and red or grey)]*4
         ary
     end.transpose.map do |px|
         px.flatten!.pack("C#{px.length}x#{px.length%4}")
     end.join
     ["BM", ibmp.length + 54, 0, 0, 54, 40, 
       results.length * 2, 15, 1, 24, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0].
       pack("A2ISSIIiiSSIIiiII") + ibmp
 end

It’s got one known bug: graphs built from 16-element arrays get staticky. Free inky duck drawing to first patcher.