Java generated birt report, number on label

marianor

Hi, I have the following problem with a BIRT report that has to be generated with java code.

I have created a report to Excel dynamically with a servlet because the number of columns is dynamic.

For each cell of the table I create a Label, and put the value, but sometimes that value is numerical. Although the result is seen well in screen, the generated XLS in fact takes the numeric data like a string, which is a problem since I have to apply formulas over those cells . If I open .xls with a text editor, I see that the result in fact is a XML, and the cells are defined like this:



<Cell ss:Index="7" ss:StyleID="42" ss:MergeAcross="1" ss:MergeDown="0">

<Data ss:Type="String">458</Data>

</Cell>



If change the ?ss:Type? to ?Number? and I open it again with Excel, it recognizes the cell as a number. I haven?t found the way to create the report with that cell configuration from my BIRT code. I?ve tried the method setProperty several times with configurations I found on the Internet like:

label.setProperty("dataType", "decimal")

label.setProperty("Type", "Number")

?



And they all throw a PropertyNameException because BIRT does not recognize the property.



This is a summary of the code that I have done:



ElementFactory designFactory = reportDesignHandle.getElementFactory();

TableHandle table;

RowHandle row;

CellHandle cell;

LabelHandle label;

?

table = (TableHandle) designFactory.newTableItem(?table?, 5, 1, 4, 1);

row = (RowHandle) table.getHeader().get(i);

cell = (CellHandle) row.getCells().get(i);

label = designFactory.newLabel("label?);

label.setText(?4453?);

label.setProperty("textAlign", "center");

label.setProperty("fontWeight", "bold");

?



Thanks a lot, I?ll be looking forward to any idea you may have.