As a follow-up to my previous post about using iReport, I wanted to write some code that would run the report.  My goal is something that I can launch from PeopleTools.

Below is some Java that will execute the report and build a PDF output.  This class takes the XML data file and the report designed by iReport and produces a PDF out of it.

package net.digitaleagle.psst0101;

import java.io.File;
import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.Locale;

import net.sf.jasperreports.engine.JRException;
import net.sf.jasperreports.engine.JRParameter;
import net.sf.jasperreports.engine.JasperCompileManager;
import net.sf.jasperreports.engine.JasperExportManager;
import net.sf.jasperreports.engine.JasperFillManager;
import net.sf.jasperreports.engine.JasperPrint;
import net.sf.jasperreports.engine.JasperReport;
import net.sf.jasperreports.engine.query.JRXPathQueryExecuterFactory;
import net.sf.jasperreports.engine.util.FileResolver;
import net.sf.jasperreports.engine.util.JRXmlUtils;

import org.w3c.dom.Document;

public class JasperInterface {
	private String dataPath;
	private String basePath;
	private String reportName;
	private String reportOutput;

	public JasperInterface(String dataPath, String basePath, String reportName, String reportOutput) {
		this.dataPath = dataPath;
		this.basePath = basePath;
		this.reportName = reportName;
		this.reportOutput = reportOutput;
	}

	public void run() throws JRException {
		Document data = JRXmlUtils.parse(dataPath);

		HashMap parms = new HashMap();
		parms.put(JRXPathQueryExecuterFactory.PARAMETER_XML_DATA_DOCUMENT, data);
		parms.put(JRXPathQueryExecuterFactory.XML_DATE_PATTERN, "yyyy-MM-dd");
		parms.put(JRXPathQueryExecuterFactory.XML_LOCALE, Locale.ENGLISH);
		parms.put(JRParameter.REPORT_LOCALE, Locale.US);

		FileResolver fileResolver = new FileResolver() {
			 @Override
			 public File resolveFile(String fileName) {
			  return new File(basePath, fileName);
			 }
			};
		parms.put(JRParameter.REPORT_FILE_RESOLVER, fileResolver);

		JasperReport jr = JasperCompileManager.compileReport(basePath + reportName);
		JasperPrint pr = JasperFillManager.fillReport(jr, parms);
		JasperExportManager.exportReportToPdfFile(pr, reportOutput);
	}
}

Here’s some code that can launch the report without needing the JasperReports classes in the classpath.  I originally thought about just putting the jar files into the class directory in the PeopleSoft Home, but Jasper Reports has a number of Jar files.  So, I created a class that had no dependencies on JasperReports.  I tell it the location of the JasperReports installation, and it builds the necessary class path.

package net.digitaleagle.psst0101;

import java.io.File;
import java.lang.reflect.Constructor;
import java.lang.reflect.Method;
import java.net.MalformedURLException;
import java.net.URL;
import java.net.URLClassLoader;
import java.util.ArrayList;

public class JasperReportRunner {
	private String jasperPath;
	private String dataPath;
	private String basePath;
	private String reportName;
	private String reportOutput;

	/**
	 * @param args
	 */
	public static void main(String[] args) {
		String jasperPath = args[0];
		String dataPath = args[1];
		String basePath = args[2];
		String reportName = args[3];
		String reportOutput = args[4];

		JasperReportRunner jrr = new JasperReportRunner(jasperPath, dataPath, basePath, reportName, reportOutput);
		jrr.run();
	}

	public JasperReportRunner(String jasperPath, String dataPath, String basePath, String reportName, String reportOutput) {
		this.jasperPath = jasperPath;
		this.dataPath = dataPath;
		this.basePath = basePath;
		this.reportName = reportName;
		this.reportOutput = reportOutput;
	}

	public void run() {
		ArrayList urls = new ArrayList();
		File jasperDir = new File(jasperPath);
		addJars(urls, new File(jasperDir, "dist"));
		addJars(urls, new File(jasperDir, "lib"));
		URLClassLoader ucl = new URLClassLoader(urls.toArray(new URL[0]));
		Class jic;
		try {
			jic = ucl.loadClass(this.getClass().getPackage().getName() + ".JasperInterface");
		} catch (ClassNotFoundException e) {
			System.err.println("Could not access JasperInterface class");
			e.printStackTrace();
			return;
		}
		Constructor c = jic.getConstructors()[0];
		Object ji;
		try {
			ji = c.newInstance(dataPath, basePath, reportName, reportOutput);
		} catch (Exception e) {
			System.err.println("Error creating new instance of JasperInterface");
			e.printStackTrace();
			return;
		}
		Method method;
		try {
			method = jic.getMethod("run");
		} catch (Exception e) {
			System.err.println("Could not get run method");
			e.printStackTrace();
			return;
		}
		try {
			method.invoke(ji);
		} catch (Exception e) {
			System.err.println("Could not get execute run method");
			e.printStackTrace();
			return;
		}
	}

	private void addJars(ArrayList urls, File jarDir) {
		if(!jarDir.exists()) {
			System.err.println("Could not find Jasper Jar files in directory: " + jarDir.getAbsolutePath());
			System.err.println("Check installation directory");
			return;
		}
		for(File jarFile : jarDir.listFiles()) {
			if(jarFile.isFile() && jarFile.getName().toLowerCase().endsWith(".jar")) {
				try {
					urls.add(jarFile.toURI().toURL());
				} catch (MalformedURLException e) {
					System.err.println("Error loading jar for class path: " + jarFile.getAbsolutePath());
					e.printStackTrace();
				}
			}
		}
	}

}

Resources

• JavaLobby DZone: Java Reporting With Jasper Reports – Part 2
• StackOverflow: Compile & Fill Jasper Report – XML datasource

Because Oracle has stopped delivering Crystal Reports with PeopleSoft, I heard a few discussions about whether or not to license it for a new installation.  So, it’s an perfect timing to explorer an alternative tool.

Let me introduce JasperReports.  It is open-source, Java-based report generation tool.  The reports are XML files, but they have a tool called iReport that, in my opinion, is very similar to Crystal Reports.

Here’s the descriptions from their website:

iReport:

iReport is the free, open source report designer for JasperReports. Create very sophisticated layouts containing charts, images, subreports, crosstabs and much more. Access your data through JDBC, TableModels, JavaBeans, XML, Hibernate, CSV, and custom sources. Then publish your reports as PDF, RTF, XML, XLS, CSV, HTML, XHTML, text, DOCX, or OpenOffice.

Jasper Reports:

JasperReports is the world’s most popular open source reporting engine. It is entirely written in Java and it is able to use data coming from any kind of data source and produce pixel-perfect documents that can be viewed, printed or exported in a variety of document formats including HTML, PDF, Excel, OpenOffice and Word.

So, as an introduction, let me give you a walk through introduction of using iReport to design a report based on a Query.

Read More