How is a library supposed to work anyway?

b2tech

Hello:

I thought it should be easy to mimic the functionality of copying over repeating library elements to a report design (which obviously works in the BIRT Report Designer nicely), but.......

After spending a great deal of time trying to get library elements out to a report design using only the DE, I have determined the following:

If you need to repeat an element (ie. a table contained in a library) in one report design, you will need to create a unique tablehandle for each iteration.
[Thanks jrreid]

For example:
// Get the existing element from the library that will be used more than once in the report
// TableHandle deh5 = (TableHandle) libhan.findElement("Table_HalfWidth");

// Create the first iteration of the repeating element
// TableHandle deh51 = (TableHandle) libhan.getElementFactory().newElementFrom(deh5,"Table_Iteration_One");

Then do a localize() on each ie:
deh51.localize();
deh52.localize(); etc etc.....

Not quite sure what all happens in there (localize()) but it does make it all work. So.... now I have my DE generated report, with miscellaneous elements that come from the library and upon looking at the XML code I noticed that all my library links for the duplicated table elements are NOT there (ie. extends=[back-to-library-name]) and the report has no tie-back to the library that was opened by the design engine. Am I missing something here? Is this a step that you have to do again manually? I figured that my line of code to write out the table from the library would take care of all that.

design.getBody().add(deh51);

The above line does not preserve the "extends=" that allows you to make a change to a library element that then propogates (sometimes multiple times with the same report) to possibly hundreds of report design files.

Anyone know what the logic/code should be in here?

BillH

JasonW

Bill,

Take a look at this example:

package DEAPI;



import java.util.logging.Level;

import org.eclipse.birt.core.framework.Platform;
import org.eclipse.birt.report.engine.api.EngineConfig;
import org.eclipse.birt.report.engine.api.EngineException;
import org.eclipse.birt.report.engine.api.HTMLRenderOption;
import org.eclipse.birt.report.engine.api.IReportEngine;
import org.eclipse.birt.report.engine.api.IReportEngineFactory;
import org.eclipse.birt.report.engine.api.IReportRunnable;
import org.eclipse.birt.report.engine.api.IRunAndRenderTask;
import org.eclipse.birt.report.model.api.DesignConfig;
import org.eclipse.birt.report.model.api.DesignElementHandle;
import org.eclipse.birt.report.model.api.IDesignEngine;
import org.eclipse.birt.report.model.api.IDesignEngineFactory;
import org.eclipse.birt.report.model.api.LibraryHandle;
import org.eclipse.birt.report.model.api.ReportDesignHandle;
import org.eclipse.birt.report.model.api.SessionHandle;
import org.eclipse.birt.report.model.api.TableHandle;

import com.ibm.icu.util.ULocale;



public class AddTableFromLibRef {

public void runReport() throws EngineException
{

IReportEngine engine=null;
IDesignEngine dengine=null;
EngineConfig config = null;

try{

config = new EngineConfig( );
config.setBIRTHome("C:birtbirt-runtime-2_3_2birt-runtime-2_3_2ReportEngine");
config.setLogConfig(null, Level.FINE);
config.setResourcePath("C:workworkspaces2.3.2workspacesBIRT -DE RE API SamplesAPIsresource");
Platform.startup( config );
IReportEngineFactory factory = (IReportEngineFactory) Platform
.createFactoryObject( IReportEngineFactory.EXTENSION_REPORT_ENGINE_FACTORY );
engine = factory.createReportEngine( config );


DesignConfig dconfig = new DesignConfig( );
config.setBIRTHome("C:/birt/birt-runtime-2_3_2/birt-runtime-2_3_2/ReportEngine");
IDesignEngineFactory dfactory = (IDesignEngineFactory) Platform
.createFactoryObject( IDesignEngineFactory.EXTENSION_DESIGN_ENGINE_FACTORY );
dengine = dfactory.createDesignEngine( dconfig );



IReportRunnable design = null;
//Open the report design

SessionHandle session = dengine.newSessionHandle( ULocale.ENGLISH );

design = engine.openReportDesign("Reports/TopNPercent.rptdesign");




ReportDesignHandle report = (ReportDesignHandle) design.getDesignHandle( );

String libloc = report.getResourceFolder();


LibraryHandle libhan =session.openLibrary("C:workworkspaces2.3.2workspacesBIRT -DE RE API SamplesAPIsReportstest.rptlibrary");
report.includeLibrary("C:workworkspaces2.3.2workspacesBIRT -DE RE API SamplesAPIsReportstest.rptlibrary", "mylib");

DesignElementHandle deh1 = libhan.findDataSource("Data Source");
DesignElementHandle deh2 = libhan.findDataSet("Data Set");
DesignElementHandle deh3 = libhan.findElement("myTable");
DesignElementHandle ldeh1 = report.getElementFactory().newElementFrom(deh1, "newds");
DesignElementHandle ldeh2 = report.getElementFactory().newElementFrom(deh2, "newdt");
DesignElementHandle ldeh3 = report.getElementFactory().newElementFrom(deh3, "newtable");
DesignElementHandle ldeh4 = report.getElementFactory().newElementFrom(deh3, "newtable2");
report.getDataSources().add(ldeh1);
report.getDataSets().add(ldeh2);
report.getBody().add(ldeh3);
report.getBody().add(ldeh4);

report.saveAs("reports/modifiedtopnlibref2.rptdesign");


//Create task to run and render the report,
IRunAndRenderTask task = engine.createRunAndRenderTask(design);
task.setParameterValue("Top Percentage", new Integer(3));
task.setParameterValue("Top Count", new Integer(5));
task.validateParameters();

HTMLRenderOption options = new HTMLRenderOption();
options.setOutputFileName("output/desample/ModifiedTopNPercent.html");
options.setOutputFormat("html");
options.setImageDirectory("resample/images");

task.setRenderOption(options);



task.run();

task.close();
session.closeAll(false);

engine.destroy();
Platform.shutdown();
System.out.println("Finished");


}catch( Exception ex){
ex.printStackTrace();
}


}


/**
* @param args
*/
public static void main(String[] args) {
try
{

AddTableFromLibRef ex = new AddTableFromLibRef( );
ex.runReport();

}
catch ( Exception e )
{
e.printStackTrace();
}
}


}


Jason