Book Image

JasperReports for Java Developers

Book Image

JasperReports for Java Developers

Overview of this book

JasperReports is the world's most popular embeddable Java open source reporting library, providing Java developers with the power to easily create rich print and web reports. This book shows you exactly how to get started, and develop the skills to get the most from JasperReports. The book steers you through each point of report setup, to creating, designing, formatting, and exporting reports with data from a wide range of datasources, and integrating JasperReports with other Java frameworks. Starting with the basics of adding reporting capabilities to your application, and creating report templates you will first see how to produce your reports through the use of JRXML files, custom ANT targets, and then see preview them in both the browser and the native browser of JasperReports. Getting data into your reports is the next step, and you will see how to get data from a range of datasources, not only databases, but XML files, and Java Objects, among others. You will create better looking reports with formatting and grouping, as well as adding graphical elements to the report. You will export your reports to a range of different formats, including PDF and XML. Creating reports will be made even easier with a walkthrough of the iReport Designer visual designing tool. To round things off, you will see how to integrate your reports with other Java frameworks, using Spring or Hibernate to get data for the report, and Java Server Faces or Struts for presenting the report.
Table of Contents (13 chapters)
12
Index

Chapter 11. Integrating JasperReports with other Frameworks

In previous chapters, we have seen several examples of web-based applications generating reports and streaming them to the browser. In those examples, we have been using 'raw' servlets to generate reports. Most modern Java web-based applications are written using one of several web application frameworks. In this chapter, we will discuss how to integrate JasperReports with three of the most popular Java web application frameworks, Spring Web MVC, JavaServer Faces, and Struts.

In addition to using a web application framework, most modern Java projects use an Object‑Relational Mapping tool for database access. In this chapter, we will cover how to generate reports with database data obtained using Hibernate, the most popular Java Object-Relational Mapping tool.

Please note that this chapter assumes some familiarity with the above frameworks. Feel free to skip to the sections that apply to frameworks used...