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:
- Customize the report-generation process
- Incorporate complex business logic in their reports
This book also informs application developers about how to:
- Integrate reporting capabilities into other applications
- Extend BIRT functionality
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:
- Report Items. New controls may be added to the BIRT designer palette using the report item extension API.
- Complex Logic. Event handlers written in JavaScript or Java may be included in the generation or presentation phase of report or chart execution to incorporate custom logic required by the application.
- Data Access. The Open Data Access (ODA) extension provides the means to develop drivers for new, non-JDBC data sources as well as create graphical user interfaces for query specification.
- Rendering. New report output formats or output for specialized devices can be developed using the report rendering extension API.
Who should read this book
This book is intended for people who have a programming background. These readers can be categorized as:
- Embedders and integrators. These individuals work with the software to integrate it into their current application infrastructure.
- Extenders. These individuals leverage APIs and other extension points to add capability or to establish new interoperability between currently disparate components or services.
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 XML elements that define both the visual and non-visual elements that comprise a report design. The ROM specification includes the properties and methods of those elements, and the relationships among the elements.
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 XML stream, a Hibernate object, or any variety of custom sources of data. This chapter provides a tutorial about how to add a scripted data source to a report and how to write the event handlers for that data source.
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:
- The report engine API, in the org.eclipse.birt.report.engine.api hierarchy, supports developers of custom report generators.
- The design engine API, in the org.eclipse.birt.report.engine.api hierarchy, supports the development of custom report designs.
- The chart engine API, in the org.eclipse.birt.chart hierarchy, is used to develop a custom chart generator.
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...
