Previewing BIRT reports from scripted data sources that call Hibernate

Gavin

I am a relative newbie to BIRT.

I am developing reports for execution by the BIRT engine embedded inside a web application. The web application can be Spring-configured to use any RBDMS as the back end. Rather than construct multiple variants of each report (to cover each possible proprietary SQL dialect) we use a scripted data source to call Hibernate classes, thus making each report portable between database types. This all works well.

The problem that I have is that I cannot preview results for these reports in Eclipse BIRT report designer.. I guess that this is because the container that creates the Hibernate session is not available to the report designer in Eclipse, hence the error about "Not able to create Hibernate Session" or something like that which pops up when you hit the preview button..

To get around this limitation I develop protoype reports for MySQL using a BIRT JDBC data source. This allows me to preview things in the Eclipse environment as I develop and I can tell if it is working. Later when I am satisfied with the protoype I convert to HQL and Hibernate calls in a scripted data source..

This seems sub optimal and I wonder if anyone has any advice on a better way of development that I can use than this...

Suggestions welcome!!!

Many thanks,
Gavin.

Virgil Dodson

Hi Gavin,<br />
<br />
There was another thread lately with BIRT/Hibernate instructions that may be helpful at <a class='bbc_url' href='http://www.birt-exchange.org/forum/deploying-integrating-birt-report-engine-applications/15061-required-urgent-help-problem-deploying-reports-hibernate-birt.html'>http://www.birt-exchange.org/forum/deploying-integrating-birt-report-engine-applications/15061-required-urgent-help-problem-deploying-reports-hibernate-birt.html</a>.<br />
<br />
Are your Hibernate classes in another Java project in Eclipse? If so, have you tried looking at the Project Properties for the Report Project and checking your Java project in the Project References tab?