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BIRT is generating reports without BIRT report runtime

Malintha Adikari

Hi,
 
I am a newbie to BIRT and wrote a simple java class to generate pdf report from my sql db. I have installed report designer in my eclipse IDE. I haven't install any BIRT runtime on my machine. What I did was designing report from eclipse and then just execute my java class. That code generated the PDF file as expected getting data from the DB. So, should I install and run BIRT report generating runtime explicitly ? Can you explain how BIRT is working here ?
 
 
Following is the main method of the java class
 
Regards,
Malintha
 
public static void main(String[] args) { 
EngineConfig conf = null; 
ReportEngine eng = null; 
IReportRunnable design = null; 
IRunAndRenderTask task = null; 
HTMLRenderContext renderContext = null; 
HashMap contextMap = null; 
PDFRenderOption options = null; 
conf = new EngineConfig(); 
eng = new ReportEngine( conf ); try 
{ 
design = eng.openReportDesign("/home/malintha/projects/Reporting/pc_test_report.rptdesign"); 
} catch (Exception e) 
{ 
e.printStackTrace(); 
System.exit(-1); 
} 
task = eng.createRunAndRenderTask(design); 
renderContext = new HTMLRenderContext(); 
renderContext.setImageDirectory("image"); 
contextMap = new HashMap(); 
contextMap.put( EngineConstants.APPCONTEXT_HTML_RENDER_CONTEXT, renderContext ); 
task.setAppContext( contextMap ); 
options = new PDFRenderOption(); 
options.setOutputFileName("/home/malintha/output.pdf"); 
options.setOutputFormat("pdf"); 
task.setRenderOption(options); try 
{ 
task.run(); 
} catch (Exception e) 
{ 
e.printStackTrace(); 
System.exit(-1); 
}
eng.destroy(); 
} 
}

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Comments

Clement Wong

You are using the Report Engine API as part of the BIRT Engine.
 
For background info
<ul class=""><li>Report Engine API - The org.eclipse.birt.report.engine.api package hierarchy contains the API to access the report generation functions. This API provides the most commonly used functionality for a reporting application. The key class in the Report Engine API is ReportEngine. This class provides access to all the tasks required to create the desired output file from a BIRT design (.rptdesign) or a BIRT document (.rptdocument). The Report Engine API also includes the classes and packages that support the scripting capabilities of a report design. 
</li>
<li>Design Engine API - The org.eclipse.birt.report.model.api package hierarchy is by far the larger of the two BIRT APIs. This API provides access to the content and structure of a BIRT design, a template, or a library. A BIRT based application can call this API to change the structure of a BIRT design. The Design Engine API is also used in the development of a custom BIRT designer. 
</li>
<li>Chart Engine API - The org.eclipse.birt.chart package hierarchy contains the API that a developer of a custom chart generator uses. A BIRT based application can also use this API in conjunction with the Report Engine and Design Engine APIs to create and modify chart elements in a BIRT design.</li>
</ul> 
Here is a simple execution of a report using the REAPI in Java:
<a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='https://wiki.eclipse.org/Simple_Execute_(BIRT)_2.1'>https://wiki.eclipse.org/Simple_Execute_(BIRT)_2.1</a>
 
And also more in-depth documentation:
<a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='http://developer.actuate.com/be/documentation/ihub3-dev/AIG/aig24/index.html#page/aig/Programming.1.07.html'>http://developer.actuate.com/be/documentation/ihub3-dev/AIG/aig24/index.html#page/aig/Programming.1.07.html</a>

Malintha Adikari

Thank you very much for the explanation. I went through <a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='https://wiki.eclipse.org/Simple_Execute_(BIRT)_2.1'>https://wiki.eclipse.org/Simple_Execute_(BIRT)_2.1</a> and I have one thing to get clarified. In the code you have pointed out, I could find following lines where it creates EngineConfig object and set engine home property to it
 
// Configure the Engine and start the Platform config = new EngineConfig(); 
config.setEngineHome("C:/birt-runtime-2_1_1/birt-runtime-2_1_1/ReportEngine");
 
And in the comment I says
 
"Also, you should have downloaded and installed the birt-runtime. (I guess you have because otherwise what did you set the engine home in the code above?)"
 
According to my understanding installing birt-runtime is not a must to generate a report. Could you please verify whether my understanding is correct ?

Clement Wong

You need the BIRT Runtime to generate reports.