alternatives to using XML datasource

Hello, 
 
I am interested in both best-practices and perhaps alternatives to using XML from a URL as a datasource. 
 
I have managed to create a report design, with an XML file as the data source. I created a table from that XML, which turned out nicely. I was able to run the report as well. 
 
Now, the XML source is generated by a jsp. This jsp is using classes that have collected data and made the necessary calculations before the data reaches the jsp. The jsp is calling generateXML() function in a variation of org.jdom.output.XMLOutputter. Using JDOM, the XML elements are generated and then sent back to the jsp which then outputs it. Simple, one would imagine. 
 
The problem is, the jsp is bound to a session which requires authentication. I have seen a few other posts in this forum where users have experienced problems with using an XML datasource from a URL. That problem was in my case solved by removing the session check altogether, and also using JDOM directly in the jsp to generate XML. Doing that enables the use of a URL which has an XML-generating jsp when creating Data Sets in Report Designer. 
 
Obviously, using a jsp without authentication will get me absolutely nowhere. 
 
Now to my actual question: 
 
Are there alternatives to making this XML generation/parsing detour? 
 
I can not get the data directly from the db since there is a bunch of logic to put it together from a bunch of tables before it makes sense. 
 
The data is available, readily calculated, within the classes and there could/should be a way to access that data without having to make and parse the XML. 
 
Can the Data Sets be built on the fly, for example? Somebody help me out with this, plz. I hope I have managed to formulate my question properly. 
 
Thanks in advance!

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Comments

Virgil Dodson

Hi tapani108, 
 
I had a similar issue recently where I needed to access CSV data at a URL. I chose to use a Scripted Data Source and then write a small Java class that went after the data and parsed it myself... My code is below that you can use as a starting point to parse your XML if desired. 
 
<pre class='_prettyXprint _lang-auto _linenums:0'>
import java.io.FileReader;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStreamReader;
import java.net.*;
import java.util.Vector;

import au.com.bytecode.opencsv.CSVReader;
public class EclipseConData
{
public Vector readData(){
Vector rtnV = new Vector();
try {
URL url = new URL("http://testservername/2009/birtreport&nodoctype");
URLConnection urlC = url.openConnection();

CSVReader reader = new CSVReader(new InputStreamReader(url.openStream()),',', '"', 1);
String [] nextLine;
while ((nextLine = reader.readNext()) != null) {
rtnV.add(new String[]{nextLine[0],nextLine[1],nextLine[2],nextLine[3],nextLine[4],nextLine[5],nextLine[6],nextLine[7],nextLine[8],nextLine[9],nextLine[10],nextLine[11],nextLine[12],nextLine[13]});
}

} catch (MalformedURLException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
} catch (IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}

return (rtnV);
}
}
</pre>