JasperReports for Java Developers: Create, Design, Format and Export Reports with the world's most popular Java reporting library [Paperback]

David Heffelfinger (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1904811906 | ISBN-13: 978-1904811909 | Publication Date: August 4, 2006 | Edition: 1

Concise, practical guidance introduces you to JasperReports, and gets you creating complex and elegant reports¿. This book is for Java developers who want to create rich reports for either the web or print, and want to get started quickly with JasperReports to do this. No knowledge of JasperReports is presumed, although obviously familiarity with Java, SQL, and XML are assumed where they are required.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

David Heffelfinger

David Heffelfinger is the Chief Technology Officer of Ensode Technology, LLC, a software consulting firm based in the greater Washington DC area. He has been architecting, designing and developing software professionally since 1995, he has been using Java as his primary programming language since 1996. He has worked on many large scale projects for several clients including the US Department of Homeland Security, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae and the US Department of Defense. He has a Masters degree in Software Engineering from Southern Methodist University. David is editor in chief of Ensode.net (ensode.net), a web site about Java, Linux and other technology topics.

Product Details

• Paperback: 344 pages
• Publisher: Packt Publishing; 1 edition (August 4, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1904811906
• ISBN-13: 978-1904811909
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,232,804 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good Introduction To Jasper Reports, April 10, 2007

By 

Sulalith Rajapakse "SR" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: JasperReports for Java Developers: Create, Design, Format and Export Reports with the world's most popular Java reporting library (Paperback)

I was looking for complex examples on crosstab reports but found only basic examples. I wish they had a chapter on Dynamic reports and a section describing the jasper report object model.

Otherwise it is a good introduction into Jasper Reports as it goes through all the features (rather than searching through the jasper report forum).

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Well Written, but POORLY Indexed, October 14, 2007

By 

James A. Brownfield - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: JasperReports for Java Developers: Create, Design, Format and Export Reports with the world's most popular Java reporting library (Paperback)

This is a pretty well written book, but it's lacking in two respects:

1) The index is terrible. You literally have to thumb through the book to find what you're looking for. For a technical manual, this is inexcusable and greatly reduces the usability of the book.

2) The examples are far too trivial and it never ups the ante so you can see JasperReport examples that are closer to "real world."

9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Heffelfinger Shows us the Yellow Brick Road, April 22, 2007

By 

G. Smetzer "Jerry Smetzer" (Juneau, Alaska United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: JasperReports for Java Developers: Create, Design, Format and Export Reports with the world's most popular Java reporting library (Paperback)

Heffelfinger's book meets all my tests for excellence in technical manuals. First, it addresses a development problem I am having today; and it is the only book on the market - including books and articles published by the vendor - that does so. Other favorable attributes include these: the book is less than 3/4ths of an inch thick, weighs less than a pound; cost less than $50 bucks; and there is more white space than dense text.

Some authors of technical books must think we buy their books in order to better understand and appreciate their verbose writing styles. I did that sort of thing in my literature courses. When I am under the gun to produce bullet-proof code I want the insight and keyboard sequences that get me to user acceptance with the shortest time, and the least grief.

Finally, maybe most important, the book is full of brief, readable, complete, and relevant code. When compiled, the code actually works on my ratty old development machine with a minimum number of obscure error messages. There are many references to needed downloads and sources of information relevant to the topics discussed. The error messages can be resolved with some careful re-reading and re-thinking. Thus do we get through our learning curves. Unlike some technical books, the error messages generated by the code in this one are not black holes where hours of time disappear without ever regurgitating a solution to the problem that caused the error.

My first programming opportunity in college had me using machine language techniques to write a five card inventory program on an IBM 1620 with 4K of magnetic core memory. I followed that up with a couple of years on a Displaywriter. In recent years I've had better equipment, and I've learned how to make Agile XP and use cases a part of my daily life, but youthful and sophisticated users who have grown up with the web want lots of tricky stuff on their pocket-size devices. The problem for old guys like me is that the tricky stuff and the devices themselves were never dreamed of in the late 20th century when I was trying to get my programmer chops, but today's users want the stuff, and they want it now.

So, since I enjoy trying to make this stuff, I have been recently engaged in a massive struggle to figure out how to drag my decades of programming experience with Basic, Visual Basic, MS Access, and client-server architectures into the brave new 21st century world of n-tier, the web, java, open source, and mobile, disconnected data gathering.

On page 25 David H told me, the reader, that I was required to use ANT in order to work the examples in his book. This was not an option. By doing so he has shined a light on the yellow brick road to the geek promised land, and this old geek is now going happily down that road. Five stars for "Jasper Reports for Java Developers."