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.

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JasperReports for Java Developers
Aug, 2006 | 344 pages
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Table of Contents (13 chapters)
Preface
Preface
What This Book Covers
What You Need for This Book
Conventions
Reader Feedback
Customer Support
Free Chapter
1
1. An Overview of JasperReports
1. An Overview of JasperReports
Brief History of JasperReports
What is JasperReports?
The JasperReports Open-Source License
Features of JasperReports
Class Library Dependencies
Typical Workflow
Where to Get Help?
Summary
2
2. Adding Reporting Capabilities to Java Applications
2. Adding Reporting Capabilities to Java Applications
Downloading JasperReports
JasperReports Class Library
Summary
3
3. Creating Your First Report
3. Creating Your First Report
Creating a JRXML Report Template
Generating the Report
Displaying Reports on a Web Browser
Elements of a JRXML Report Template
Summary
4
4. Creating Dynamic Database Reports
4. Creating Dynamic Database Reports
Database for Our Reports
Generating Database Reports
Summary
5
5. Working with Other Datasources
5. Working with Other Datasources
Empty Datasources
Map Datasources
Java Objects as Datasources
TableModels as Datasources
XML as Datasource
Custom Datasources
Summary
6
6. Report Layout and Design
6. Report Layout and Design
Controlling Report-Wide Layout Properties
Setting Text Properties
Setting a Report's Background
Adding Multiple Columns to a Report
Grouping Report Data
Report Expressions
Report Variables
Stretching Text Fields to Accommodate Data
Laying Out Report Elements
Using the <frame> Element
Hiding Repeated Values
Subreports
Summary
7
7. Adding Charts and Graphics to Reports
7. Adding Charts and Graphics to Reports
Adding Geometrical Shapes to a Report
Adding Images to a Report
Adding Charts to a Report
Summary
8
8. Other JasperReports Features
8. Other JasperReports Features
Report Localization
Scriptlets
Crosstabs
Subdatasets
Adding Hyperlinks and Anchors to Reports
Handling Very Large Reports
Summary
9
9. Exporting to Other Formats
9. Exporting to Other Formats
Exporting Overview
Exporting to PDF
Exporting to RTF
Exporting to Excel
Exporting to HTML
Exporting to XML
Exporting to CSV
Exporting to Plain Text
Directing HTML Reports to a Browser
Summary
10
10. Graphical Report Design with iReport
10. Graphical Report Design with iReport
Obtaining iReport
Creating a Database Report in Record Time
Creating a Report "From Scratch"
Creating More Elaborate Reports
Help and Support
Summary
11
11. Integrating JasperReports with other Frameworks
11. Integrating JasperReports with other Frameworks
Integrating JasperReports with Hibernate
Integrating JasperReports with Spring
Integrating JasperReports with JavaServer Faces
Integrating JasperReports with Struts
Summary
12
Index
Index

What This Book Covers

Chapter 1 covers JasperReports' history, and its features and gives us an overview of the steps involved in generating reports using JasperReports.

Chapter 2 shows us how to embed JasperReports into client and server-side Java applications. We will install JasperReports and learn how to identify and install required libraries. We will also see how to set up our development and execution environment to add reporting capabilities to Java applications.

InChapter 3, we create our first static JasperReports both programmatically and by using the ANT tool. We will see how to work with JRXML and binary report templates to generate reports in JasperReports' native format. We will then learn how to view these reports.

InChapter 4, we learn how to create dynamic reports. We will do this by embedding SQL queries in the JRXML report template, or by passing the database data to the compiled report via a datasource.

InChapter 5, we cover how to use datasources other than databases to create reports. Specifically, we will learn to create reports from empty datasources, Java objects, TableModels, XML data, and also from our custom-created datasources.

InChapter 6, we cover how to create elaborate layouts for our reports by adding background images or text to a report, logically grouping report data, conditionally printing report data, and creating subreports.

InChapter 7, we cover how to take advantage of JasperReports' graphical features and create reports with graphical data like geometric shapes, images, and 2-D and 3-D charts.

Chapter 8 discusses advanced JasperReports' features like creating crosstab (cross-tabulation) reports and adding anchors, hyperlinks, and bookmarks. We then see how to work with subdatasets and how to execute snippets of Java code by using scriptlets. This chapter also shows how to display report text in different languages.

InChapter 9, we cover how to export our reports to all formats supported by JasperReports; these include PDF, RTF, Excel, HTML, CSV, XML, and plain text. We also see how to direct exported reports to a browser.

Chapter 10 covers iReport, which is a report designer that can help us visually generate JRXML templates. This chapter shows how to install and get started with iReport. iReport can be used to do everything that we have covered so far in this book and this chapter shows us how.

Chapter 11 covers the integration of JasperReports with three of the most popular Java web application frameworks around — Spring Web MVC, JavaServer Faces, and Struts. We shall also see how to generate reports with data obtained using Hibernate, which is a popular Java Object Relational Mapping tool.

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