Integration of ReportEngine in a headless application which acts as datasource

Hello everyone,

I hope the title is good enough to understand what I want to do.
I have a small java project, which contains a tool exporting some stuff and my idea was to visualize the done work.

My problem is I don't know how to integrate the report generation into a headless environment. The basic steps to run the engine are clear (<a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='http://www.eclipse.org/birt/phoenix/deploy/reportEngineAPI.php'>http://www.eclipse.org/birt/phoenix/deploy/reportEngineAPI.php</a>).
But there are two things, which are unclear:
- How to transfer data from my running java application into the ReportEngine?
- How to design the report using that data?

Thanks for any hints.

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Comments

mwilliams

You can build reports with the Design Engine API (DEAPI) Here's a devShare post with some examples of using the DEAPI. <a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='http://www.birt-exchange.org/devshare/_/designing-birt-reports/409-deapi-examples-from-birtexchange-webinar'>http://www.birt-exchange.org/devshare/_/designing-birt-reports/409-deapi-examples-from-birtexchange-webinar</a> To pass your data in, you would create a dataSource that would take in the data from your java application. There are several different default dataSource types, including flat file, POJO, XLS, etc,. There is also a scripted dataSource that gives you more freedom to build your resultset from any data you know how to step through. Hope this helps.

Steve M.

Hum so it means I will code my report instead of "design"?Is there no way to connect both worlds?I create in the Designer my report with an "abstract" datasource and this one I will use in the ReportEngine?

mwilliams

You can create your designs with the designer, as well. I just guessed that you were wanting to use the APIs. So, if you create your data connection and reports with the designer, you could run the reports with the RE API code. Hope this helps.

Steve M.

Hello Michael, I am sorry, but no it doesn't answer my question. I simply want to create a report in the designer and generate the report output with the Report Engine API.Designing the report in general is no problem for me, but I want to use a data source, which I can set with the help of the Report Engine API. The point is that the data source is no JDBC, file or similar. I want to use data from the tool, which is calling the report generation. I hope the example make it more clear:<pre class="_prettyXprint">// Doing some magic stuff// Preparing report data for example in measuring needed time etcreportData = generateReportData();final config = new EngineConfig( );//delete the following line if using BIRT 3.7 (or later) POJO runtime//As of 3.7.2, BIRT now provides an OSGi and a POJO Runtime.config.setEngineHome( "C:birt-runtime-2_6_2birt-runtime-2_6_2ReportEngine" );config.setLogConfig(c:/temp, Level.FINE); Platform.startup( config ); //If using RE API in Eclipse/RCP application this is not needed.IReportEngineFactory factory = (IReportEngineFactory) Platform.createFactoryObject( IReportEngineFactory.EXTENSION_REPORT_ENGINE_FACTORY );IReportEngine engine = factory.createReportEngine( config );engine.changeLogLevel( Level.WARNING );//Open a report document IReportDocument iReportDocument = engine.openReportDocument("c:/work/test/Pages.rptdocument");//

// Set however the report datasource/data// iReportDocument.setDataForTable1(reportData);// How to realize this part?//

//Create Render TaskIRenderTask task = engine.createRenderTask(iReportDocument);//Set parent classloader report enginetask.getAppContext().put(EngineConstants.APPCONTEXT_CLASSLOADER_KEY, RenderTaskExample.class.getClassLoader()); // RenderIRenderTask task = engine.createRenderTask(document); task.setRenderOption(options);task.render();iReportDocument.close();</pre>

mwilliams

You could probably just pass your data through the appContext and then in your report design, access the data using a scripted dataset and turn it into rows for your result set for your design to use. Based on your code above, you're accessing a report document from a report that's already been executed, so you wouldn't be able to do this with your current code. You'd need to pass the data in for the run task before the report document is generated.