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Integrating and Extending BIRT, Third Edition, introduces programmers to BIRT architecture and the reporting framework. BIRT technology makes it possible for programmers to build customized reports using scripting and BIRT APIs. This book also includes extensive examples of how to use the Eclipse Plug-in Development Environment to build plug-ins to extend the features of the BIRT framework. The source code for these examples is available for download at www.eclipse.org/birt.
Key topics covered include
This revised and expanded third edition features the following new content
Readers may also be interested in this book’s companion volume. BIRT: A Field Guide, Third Edition, is the authoritative guide to using BIRT Report Designer, the graphical tool that enables users of all levels to build reports, from simple to complex, without programming.
About this book
BIRT is a powerful reporting platform that provides end-to-end reporting solutions, from creating and deploying reports to integrating report capabilities into other enterprise applications. Two companion books, BIRT: A Field Guide to Reporting and Integrating and Extending BIRT, cover the breadth and depth of BIRT's functionality.
This book informs report developers about how to write scripts that:
This book also informs application developers about how to:
By its very nature, reporting is not a stand-alone technology. It draws on data generated by applications and is frequently integrated tightly within those applications. In some applications, such as performance monitoring, reporting provides the most tangible expression of value. Therefore, a successful reporting platform must emphasize interoperability and extensibility, and, a successful implementation of that platform must always involve some measure of integration and extension.
As you read this book, you will see the significant investment that has been made in BIRT to provide support for interoperability and extensibility. In the area of interoperability, for instance, BIRT supports flexible deployment of its report engine and viewer to a wide variety of J2EE application server environments. Other provisions for interoperability in the BIRT platform include the ability to dynamically build or modify reports from within an application using the design engine application programming interface (API) and the ability to access native data objects using the scripted data source mechanism.
In the area of extensibility, BIRT provides hooks to build upon platform capabilities in the following areas:
This book is intended for people who have a programming background. These readers can be categorized as:
To write scripts in report design, you need knowledge of JavaScript or Java. More advanced tasks, such as extending BIRT's functionality, require Java development experience and familiarity with the Eclipse platform.
Contents of this book
This book is divided into several parts. The following sections describe the contents of each of the parts.
Installing and Deploying BIRT
Part I, "Installing and Deploying BIRT," introduces the currently available BIRT reporting packages, the prerequisites for installation, and the steps to install and update the packages. Part I includes the following chapters:
Chapter 1, "Prerequisites for BIRT." BIRT provides a number of separate packages as downloadable archive (.zip) files on the Eclipse web site. Some of the packages are stand-alone modules, others require an existing Eclipse environment, and still others provide additional functionality to report developers and application developers. This chapter describes the prerequisites for each of the available packages.
Chapter 2, "Installing a BIRT Report Designer." BIRT provides two report designers as separate packages, which are downloadable archive (.zip) files on the Eclipse web site. This chapter describes the steps required to install each of the available report designers.
Chapter 3, "Installing Other BIRT Packages." This chapter describes the steps required to install each of the available packages.
Chapter 4, "Updating BIRT." BIRT packages are Eclipse-based, so it is easy to update any of them from earlier releases to release 2.0 or later. This chapter describes how you can install the latest packages without interrupting your work.
Chapter 5, "Deploying a BIRT Report to an Application Server." This chapter introduces the distribution of reports through an application server such as Apache Tomcat, IBM WebSphere, or BEA WebLogic. The instructions in the chapter provide detailed guidance into deploying a BIRT report to Apache Tomcat version 5.5.7. From those instructions, a developer can infer how to deploy to other versions.
Understanding the BIRT Framework
Part II, "Understanding the BIRT Framework," introduces the BIRT architecture and the Report Object Model (ROM) and provides background information that will help programmers design or modify reports programmatically, instead of using the graphical tools in BIRT Report Designer. Part II includes the following chapters:
Chapter 6, "Understanding the BIRT Architecture." This chapter provides an architectural overview of BIRT and its components, including the relationships among the BIRT components and BIRT's relationship to Eclipse and Eclipse frameworks. Architectural diagrams illustrate and clarify the relationships and workflow of the components. The chapter also provides brief overviews of all the major BIRTcomponents.
Chapter 7, "Understanding the Report Object Model." This chapter provides an overview of the BIRT ROM. ROM is a specification for a set of
Scripting in a Report Design
Part III, "Scripting in a Report Design," describes how a report developer can customize and enhance a BIRT report by writing event handler scripts in either Java or JavaScript. Part III includes the following chapters:
Chapter 8, "Using Scripting in a Report Design." This chapter introduces the writing of a BIRT event handler script in either Java or JavaScript, including the advantages and disadvantages of using one language over the other. BIRT event handlers are associated with data sets, data sources, and report items. BIRT fires specific events at specific times in the processing of a report. This chapter identifies the events that BIRT fires and describes the event firing sequence.
Chapter 9, "Using JavaScript to Write an Event Handler." This chapter discusses the coding environment and coding considerations for writing a BIRT event handler in JavaScript. This chapter describes several BIRT JavaScript objects that a developer can use to get and set properties that affect the final report. The BIRT JavaScript coding environment offers a pop-up list of properties and functions available in an event handler. A JavaScript event handler can also use Java classes. This chapter includes a tutorial that describes the process of creating a JavaScript event handler.
Chapter 10, "Using Java to Write an Event Handler." This chapter discusses how to write a BIRT event handler in Java. BIRT provides Java adapter classes that assist the developer in the creation of Java event handlers. The report developer uses the property editor of the BIRT Report Designer to associate a Java event handler class with the appropriate report element. This chapter contains a tutorial that steps through the Java event handler development and deployment process. This chapter also describes the event handler methods and their parameters.
Chapter 11, "Using a Scripted Data Source." BIRT supports getting data from any data source that can be processed with Java or JavaScript. To use a scripted data source in a BIRT report, the report developer implements an open and a close method for the data source and an open, a fetch, and a close method for the data set. A scripted data source can be an EJB, an
Integrating BIRT Functionality into Applications
Part IV, "Integrating BIRT Functionality into Applications," describes the public APIs that are available to Java developers, except the extension APIs.Chapter 12. Understanding the BIRT APIs. This chapter introduces BIRT's public API, which are the classes and interfaces in three package hierarchies:
Chapter 13, "Programming with the BIRT Reporting APIs." This chapter describes the fundamental requirements of a reporting application and lists the BIRT API classes and interfaces that are used to create a reporting application. This chapter describes the tasks that are required of a reporting application and provides an overview of how to build a reporting application. The org.eclipse.birt.report.engine.api and org.eclipse.birt.report.model.api packages support the process of generating a report from a report design.
Chapter 14, "Programming with the BIRT Charting APIs." This chapter describes the requirements of a charting application, either in a stand-alone environment or as part of a reporting application. The org.eclipse.birt.chart hierarchy of packages provides the charting functionality in BIRT. By describing the fundamental tasks required of charting applications, this chapter introduces the API classes and interfaces that are used to create a chart.
Working with the Extension Framework
Part V, "Working with the Extension Framework," shows Java programmers how to add new functionality to the BIRT framework. By building on the Eclipse platform, BIRT provides an extension mechanism that is familiar to developers of Eclipse plug-ins. This part also provides information about how to build the BIRT project for developers who need access to the complete BIRT open source code base. Part V includes the following chapters:
Chapter 15, "Building the BIRT Project." This chapter explains how to download BIRT 2.0.1 source code and build the BIRT project for development. This chapter describes how to configure an Eclipse workspace, download BIRT and Data Tools Platform (DTP) source code from the Eclipse Concurrent Versions System (CVS) repository, and build the BIRT report and web viewers.
Chapter 16, "Extending BIRT." This chapter provides an overview of the BIRT extension framework and describes how to use the Eclipse Plug-in Development Environment (PDE) and the BIRT extension points to create, build, and deploy a BIRT extension.
Chapter 17, "Developing a Report Item Extension." This chapter describes how to develop a report item extension. The rotated text extension example is a plug-in that renders the text of a report item as an image. The extension rotates the image in the report design to display the text at a specified angle. This chapter describes how to build the rotated text report item plug-in and add the report item to the BIRT Report Designer using the defined extension points.
Chapter 18, "Developing a Report Rendering Extension." This chapter describes how to develop a report rendering extension. The Comma-Separated Values (CSV) extension example is a plug-in that writes the table data in a report to a file in CSV format. This chapter describes how to extend the emitter interfaces using the defined extension points to build and deploy a customized report rendering plug-in that runs in the BIRT Report Engine environment.
Chapter 19, "Developing an ODA Extension." This chapter describes how to develop several types of DTP ODA extensions. The CSV ODA driver example is a plug-in that reads data from a CSV file. The Hibernate ODA driver example uses Hibernate Query Language (HQL) to provide a SQLtransparent extension that makes the ODA extension portable to all relational databases. This chapter shows how to develop an ODA extension to the BIRT Report Designer 2.0.1 user interface that allows a report designer to select an extended ODA driver. This chapter also describes how to implement an extension to an ODA JDBC driver to use a supplied connection.
The glossary contains terms that are useful to understanding all parts of the book.
Preface xxi
Acknowledgments xxix
Part 1: Installing and Deploying BIRT 1
Chapter 1: Introducing BIRT Report Designers 3
Understanding BIRT components 3
Understanding Eclipse BIRT packages 4
About types of BIRT builds 5
Chapter 2: Installing a BIRT Report Designer 7
Installing BIRT Report Designer Full Eclipse Install 7
Installing BIRT RCP Report Designer 8
Troubleshooting installation problems 9
Installing a language pack 10
Updating a BIRT Report Designer installation 11
Updating BIRT RCP Report Designer installation 12
Chapter 3: Installing Other BIRT Packages 15
Installing Chart Engine 15
Installing BIRT Data Tools Platform Integration 17
Installing BIRT Demo Database 17
Installing Report Engine 19
Installing BIRT Samples 21
Installing BIRT Source Code 21
Installing BIRT Web Tools Integration 22
Chapter 4: Deploying a BIRT Report to an Application Server 25
About application servers 25
Placing the BIRT report viewer on an application server 26
Placing fonts on the application server 31
Viewing a report using a browser 31
Using connection pooling on Tomcat 32
Part 2: Understanding the BIRT Framework 37
Chapter 5: Understanding the BIRT Architecture 39
Understanding the BIRT integration 39
About the BIRT applications 43
About the types of BIRT report items 46
About the Report Object Model (ROM) 47
About the types of BIRT files 47
About custom Java applications 49
About extensions to BIRT 50
Chapter 6: Understanding the Report Object Model 51
About the ROM specification 51
About the ROM schema 53
About the rom.def file 53
Understanding ROM elements 58
Part 3: Scripting in a Report Design 61
Chapter 7: Using Scripting in a Report Design 63
Overview of BIRT scripting 63
Events overview 64
Event order sequence 71
Chapter 8: Using JavaScript to Write an Event Handler 83
Using BIRT Report Designer to enter a JavaScript event handler 83
Using the reportContext object 86
Using the this object 93
Using the row object 96
Getting column information 97
Getting and altering the query string 98
Changing data source connection properties 99
Getting a parameter value 100
Determining script execution sequence 101
Tutorial 1: Writing an event handler in JavaScript 103
JavaScript event handler examples 107
Calling external JavaScript functions 111
Calling Java from JavaScript 112
Calling the method of a class in a plug-in 114
Chapter 9: Using Java to Write an Event Handler 117
Writing a Java event handler class 117
Writing a Java event handler 123
Understanding the BIRT interfaces 128
Java event handler example 135
Debugging a Java event handler 142
Chapter 10: Working with Chart Event Handlers 143
Chart events overview 143
Understanding the Chart script context 145
Understanding when chart events fire 150
Writing a Java chart event handler 164
Writing a JavaScript chart event handler 167
Using the simplified charting API 169
Chapter 11: Using Scripting to Access Data 173
Using a Scripted Data Source 173
Tutorial 2: Creating a scripted data source 175
Creating a web services data source using a custom connection class 184
Chapter 12: Debugging Event Handlers 187
Checking the syntax of JavaScript expressions 188
Debugging JavaScript event handlers code 190
Debugging Java event handler code 194
Debugging report execution exceptions 194
Creating a debug configuration 196
Tutorial 3: Debugging a report that contains Java and JavaScript code 198
Part 4: Integrating BIRT into Applications 215
Chapter 13: Understanding the BIRT APIs 217
Package hierarchy diagrams 218
About the BIRT Report Engine API 219
About the Design Engine API 226
About the BIRT Chart Engine API 239
Chapter 14: Programming Using the BIRT Reporting APIs 257
Building a reporting application 258
Generating reports from an application 262
Programming the structure of a report design 289
Chapter 15: Programming Using the BIRT Charting API 307
About the chart engine contents 307
About the environment for a charting application 308
About the charting API and the chart structure 310
Using the charting API to create a new chart 312
Modifying chart properties 312
Using a chart item in a report design 321
Using the BIRT charting API in a Java Swing application 334
Understanding the chart programming examples 340
Part 5: Working with the Extension Framework 347
Chapter 16: Building the BIRT Project 349
About building the BIRT project 349
Installing a working version of BIRT 350
Configuring Eclipse to compile BIRT and build the viewer JAR files 350
Downloading and extracting the correct version of the BIRT source code 353
Importing, building, and testing the BIRT project 354
Building new JAR files to display BIRT output 356
Chapter 17: Extending BIRT 359
Overview of the extension framework 359
Understanding the structure of a BIRT plug-in 359
Working with the Eclipse PDE 366
Creating the structure of a plug-in extension 370
Creating the plug-in extension content 373
Building a plug-in extension 377
Deploying the extension plug-in 381
Downloading the code for the extension examples 384
Chapter 18: Developing a Report Item Extension 387
Understanding a report item extension 387
Developing the sample report item extension 389
Understanding the rotated label report item extension 404
Deploying and testing the rotated label report item plug-in 412
Developing an advanced report item 416
Chapter 19: Developing a Report Rendering Extension 465
Understanding a report rendering extension 465
Developing a CSV report rendering extension 466
Developing an XML report rendering extension 494
Chapter 20: Developing an ODA Extension 509
Understanding an ODA extension 510
Developing the CSV ODA driver extensions 511
Implementing the CSV ODA driver plug-in 513
Understanding the sample CSV ODA driver extension 522
Developing the CSV ODA user interface extension 530
Understanding the sample CSV ODA user interface extension 537
Testing the CSV ODA user interface plug-in 548
Developing a Hibernate ODA extension 554
Chapter 21: Developing a Data Extraction Extension 601
Understanding a data extraction extension 601
Developing an XML data extraction extension 602
Chapter 22: Developing a Fragment 635
Understanding a fragment 635
Developing the sample fragment 636
Creating a fragment project 637
Understanding the sample fragment 640
Building, deploying, and testing a fragment 641
Chapter 23: Developing a Charting Extension 647
About BIRT charting extension points 648
Setting up the build environment 650
Extending the chart model 652
Glossary 707
Index 779
Anonymous
Posted December 13, 2006
This book is an impressive extension on 'BIRT: A Field Guide to Reporting'. The latter described BIRT to a newcomer, showing how to use its features. With a minimal discussion of scripting for customisation. While the scripting certainly involved programming, it was rather minimal, and most of the text showed a declarative layout approach to using BIRT. The Integrating book is the sequel. Strictly a programmer's book. It assumes you've read the earlier book. But now you need to take the customising [much] further. So here the text shows how to program in Java, not just JavaScript. Essentially, the bulk of the book explains the package org.eclipse.birt, which is freely available and has been built out with many classes. The problem to a programmer is the sheer multitude of those classes. An embarrassment of riches which the book tackles. Some classes relate to customising the UI. There is a charting API built on top of Java Swing. So you can key off your pre-existing Swing expertise. Swing is pretty easy to learn, and the BIRT graphics classes seem to continue this property. The only possible problem might be if you prefer SWT widgets for the better native look and feel. But the BIRT contributors correctly decided to support the most popular widget set, which is Swing. Other BIRT classes relate to getting data at the back end, from various possible sources.
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Overview
Integrating and Extending BIRT, Third Edition, introduces programmers to BIRT architecture and the reporting framework. BIRT technology makes it possible for ...