Use java.awt.image.BufferedImage in report?

Hi All,

I have legacy code that generates a list of 2D barcodes as ArrayList<java.awt.image.BufferedImage>.

I also have a barcode plugin in BIRT that generate 2D barcodes.

However, the legacy code is very complex and deployed as a separate jar shared by multiple apps. It will be a serious PITA to refactor that code to generate strings to use as inputs to the barcode plugin to have it generate the images.

Can I use an image report item to display a BufferedImage instead?

Thanks for any advice.

Rob

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Comments

CBR

Hi, 
 
BIRT is only able to display a java byte array as an image but not an awt.BufferedImage. 
Fortunately it is a piece of cake to convert a BufferedImage into a byte array if you have some clue of programming java. 
 
To display an Byte array you have to create a data binding for the container element you are working in (e.g. table or list). Simply select the container and click on that Binding tab of the property editor. 
Add a new Binding and give it a name. 
In Expression Editor you can enter some Rhino Script. Rhino Script is entirely written in Java and therefore is able to understand java code as well. 
 
See code below for an example: 
 
<pre class='_prettyXprint _lang-auto _linenums:0'>
importPackage(Packages.java.io);
importPackage(Packages.javax.imageio);
var buffImage = ... //provide awt.BufferedImage here
var baos = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
ImageIO.write( buffImage, "png", baos );
baos.flush();
var imageInByte = baos.toByteArray();
baos.close();
imageInByte //this line of code is essentiel because last line is return value
</pre>
 
Once you created the databinding using this expression you will be able to place a image element into the table, select dynamic image and the column you created as source. Birt will now display the image for you. 
 
By the way: Cute dog..is it yours?

robertmarkbram

Thank you very much cbrell for taking the time to give me this answer. I realise that I have a worse problem - the code that gives back the images is behind a REST call, so I will be doing the refactoring to make the legacy component gives back strings instead of images anyway.

Once again - I really appreciate this response: I have learnt a lot from it (I wasn't aware of how powerful the Rhino engine is at the very least).

My avatar: my dog Jedda who passed away last year, and the most intelligent wire haired Terrier in the world.

Rob

CBR

Hi Rob,

thanks. I m always happy to help other BIRT users.

Rhino is indeed very very powerful. The fact that it is entirely written in Java is enabling you to just write java instead of rhino code as rhino code. If you ensure that you have custom java classes in your classpath you can even use them inside of BIRT Rhino Script (read: http://birtworld.blogspot.com/2009/12/birt-designer-classpath-changes.html for a description how to set up the classpath in the designer).
The only thing that i hate about Rhino Script (and therefore the reason why i prefer to write some Java classes that are going to be called using Rhino) is that it is a crappy untyped language.
While beeing at university i worked as a PHP developer for a few years before switching to Java. During that time i really learned to hate untyped languages. Rhino is even worse then PHP :-(

Concerning your dog: The reason why i m asking is that i have a dog too and he looks similar to the one in your avatar...very cute indeed.

xiaoyuandlg

This is an interesting topic, I think I gained something practical from this thread. I only had one experience on the <a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='http://www.businessrefinery.com/products/barcode/main.html'>[color=#282828;]java barcode generation[/color]</a>, since this thread, I believe that I also know more about the barcode things.