Book Image

JasperReports 3.6 Development Cookbook

By : Bilal Siddiqui
Book Image

JasperReports 3.6 Development Cookbook

By: Bilal Siddiqui

Overview of this book

<p>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. While such reports are pivotal in managing business information more effectively, creating and customizing them can get tedious.<br /><br />This book will give you recipes to solve common JasperReports problems to make your life easier. It will take you through complex examples related to JasperReports with step-by-step instructions on how to solve them.<br /><br />The author's experience in creating reports enables him to share over 50 recipes to develop crystal-clear business reports using the capabilities of JasperReports and the amazing features provided by its visual report designer tool: iReport.<br /><br />This cookbook will arm you to develop user-friendly reports by using multiple types of data in the same report, thereby saving your time in sorting, arranging, or extracting data and making the whole process effortless. First you will learn to do basic things such as creating, sizing, positioning, and enhancing the titles, headers, footers of the report. You will move on to working with the body and footer of the report, including using parameters to filter records during report processing and implementing nested hierarchy. Second, you will learn to enhance the look and feel of your report by deploying and reusing styles, and by using designs, textual effects, background images, and watermarks. You will also learn to use mathematical and logical expressions such as counting the number of records with a particular field value, grouping records, applying styles on your data based on logical or mathematical conditions, and so on.<br /><br />Then you will be able to do advanced things such as working with a variety of data sources: relational data, XML data, model beans of Java applications, and also multiple relational databases at once. You will learn to build a cover page and table of contents for multi-page reports, display multi-dimensional page numbering, and much more. You will be able to design simple and multi-level summary reports, cross-tabs with dynamic rows and columns, create bar charts, and display data trend graphs in your reports. Lastly and very importantly, you will be able to generate reports from Java Swing applications after you learn how to use JavaWrappers for your JasperReport.</p>

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JasperReports 3.6 Development Cookbook
Bilal Siddiqui
Jul, 2010 | 396 pages
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Table of Contents (13 chapters)
JasperReports 3.6 Development Cookbook
JasperReports 3.6 Development Cookbook
Credits
Credits
About the Author
About the Author
About the Reviewers
About the Reviewers
Preface
Preface
Free Chapter
1
Creating Static and Dynamic Titles and Headers
Creating Static and Dynamic Titles and Headers
Introduction
Downloading, installing, and running JasperReports and iReport
Creating your first "Hello World" report
Creating and sizing the title for your report
Using dynamic titles that can change during report processing
Inserting a company logo in the title of your report
Adding a simple header to your report
Setting margins for your report and aligning the report header relative to report margins
2
Working with the Body and Footer of your Report
Working with the Body and Footer of your Report
Introduction
Displaying a field along with its label in the body of your report and handling null values
Creating a simple table of records along with labels for each column
Inserting a heading for a group of records
Using parameters to filter records during report processing
Implementing groups within groups — a nested hierarchy
Adding a simple footer to your report
Displaying general information or summary at the end of your report
3
Enhancing the Look and Feel of your Report
Enhancing the Look and Feel of your Report
Introduction
Deploying and reusing styles in your report
Setting background color for data
Using HTML tags and bullet lists
Expanding a field vertically to accommodate large text
Applying formatting pattern to the value of a data field
Using background images and watermarks in your report
4
Working with a Variety of Data Sources
Working with a Variety of Data Sources
Introduction
Creating a report from relational data
Connecting to an XML datasource
Creating a report from XML data using XPath
Using multiple relational databases to generate a report
Creating a report from model beans of Java applications
5
Multi-page Reports
Multi-page Reports
Introduction
Building a cover page for your multi-page report
Creating a simple, one-page TOC for your report
Applying a style to your simple TOC
Resetting page numbering with the start of a particular record
Implementing complex multi-dimensional page numbering
Showing multiple types of data in the same report
Managing pagination of multiple types of data in a report
6
Multi-column Reports
Multi-column Reports
Introduction
Dividing the body of a report into multiple columns
Displaying groups of data in separate columns
Displaying data as name-value pairs in multiple columns
Filling your report horizontally in multiple columns
Using subreports to design a multi-column report
7
Summary Report, Crosstabs, and Graphs
Summary Report, Crosstabs, and Graphs
Introduction
Designing a simple summary report
Designing a multi-level summary report
Designing a crosstab—a table with dynamic rows and columns
Displaying data trends as a graph in your report
Embedding a bar graph inside a tabular view
8
Java Wrappers for your JasperReports
Java Wrappers for your JasperReports
Introduction
Creating a Java wrapper for your report
Compiling and viewing your report in a Java Swing application
Printing the hardcopy of your report using a Java Swing application
Creating an Excel report from a Java Swing application
Creating a JasperReport on the fly in a Java web application

About the Reviewers

Nadeem Ghafoor Chaudhry received his B.S. and M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Massachusetts, Lowell, U.S.A. He worked in the software industry in the U.S. for about four years. Then he switched to academia in Pakistan and taught both undergraduate and graduate courses at different institutes of higher learning in Pakistan. Currently, he is engaged as Assistant Professor in the department of Computer Science of COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, Lahore, Pakistan.

COMSATS Institute of Information Technology (CIIT) is a renowned institute for higher learning in Pakistan. Currently, the CIIT is offering 47 different degree programs divided into 20 undergraduate and 27 graduate programs in the fields of Information and Communication Technology, Management Sciences, Electrical Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Mathematics, Physics, Bio-sciences, Development Studies, Environmental Science, Meteorology, and Architecture and Design. The present student strength is around 20,000 with faculty corpus of more than 1,600. The CIIT has already produced approximately 10,000 graduates.

Sagara Gunathunga holds a special degree in Computer Science (B.Sc.) from the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka and a degree in Information Technology (BIT) from the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka. He is an Apache Axis PMC member, an Apache committer for several projects that include Apache Web Service and Apache Woden. His research interest focuses on SOA, web services, distributed systems, and modularity systems.

He also has a sound industry experience in J2EE-related technologies, including ORM tools, dependency injection frameworks, and reporting. Currently, he is playing a Tech-Lead role in a U.S.-based software services company named Aeturnum Inc.

Sagara also maintains his blog at http://ssagara.blogspot.com/, and you can get in touch with him at.

All my thanks go to my mother for supporting me.

Lloyd H. Meinholz works as an IT professional in the Washington D.C. area. He has more than 20 years of experience in developing software in a variety of programming languages and production environments. Lloyd has focused on Java, Linux, and other open source technologies for the past 12 years. He has been employed by start-up companies as well as Fortune 500 companies and worked in both the public and private sectors. Lloyd has found JasperReports and iReport to be a great reporting solution for many of his employers.

Bhavani P. Polimetla has been learning and working in the IT Industry since 1990. He graduated as a Bachelor of Computer Science and Master of Computer Applications from Andhra University, India. He worked on standalone Swing applications to Grid computing and N-tire architecture. He has worked with the world's top clients including three from Fortune 50 companies. At present, he is working as an independent Java consultant in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A.

To demonstrate his skills, he completed 25+ certifications in the spectrum of J2EE, database, and project management subjects. He also achieved many awards for many of his projects. He reads and writes poetry in his free time. More information is available at his website www.polimetla.com.

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