Chapter 2. Adding Reporting Capabilities to our Java Applications

We can easily add reporting capabilities to our Java applications by taking advantage of the classes included in the JasperReports class library. JasperReports can be easily embedded into both client and server-side Java applications simply by adding the required libraries to our CLASSPATH and calling the appropriate methods in the JasperReports API.

At the end of this chapter, we will be able to:

• Identify the purpose of the several downloads that can be found at the JasperReports web site

• Set up our development and execution environment to successfully add reporting capabilities to our Java applications

• Identify the required libraries for adding reporting capabilities to Java applications

• Identify the optional libraries that can be used to enhance the reporting capabilities of our Java applications

Downloading JasperReports

JasperReports is distributed as a JAR file that needs to be added to the CLASSPATH of any application we wish to add reporting capabilities to. JasperReports can be downloaded from http://jasperforge.org/plugins/project/project_home.php?group_id=102.

Clicking on the Download link around the center of the page will take us to the JasperReports download page on SourceForge.net.

The specific version on your screen might be different; at the time of writing, the latest stable version of JasperReports is 3.5.2.

It is not always clear what exactly is downloaded by clicking on these links; thus, we will provide a brief explanation of what each link is for.

• jasperreports-3.5.2-applet.jar: This first download link is for a JAR file containing a subset of the JasperReports functionality. Specifically, it contains classes that can be used to display JasperPrint files, which are reports in JasperReports' native format. This file is offered as a separate download as a convenience...

JasperReports class library

For all JasperReports-related tasks, we need to add the JasperReports library to our CLASSPATH. The JasperReports library can be found under the dist directory in the project file; it is named jasperreports-3.5.2.jar. Depending on the version of JasperReports, the filename will vary.

Required libraries for report compilation

The project file described earlier contains all of the required supporting libraries. Once that file is downloaded, all the required libraries can be found under the lib subdirectory of the directory created when extracting the ZIP file. JasperReports uses these required files for XML parsing. Therefore, they are needed when compiling JRXML files programmatically, not for filling or displaying reports. JRXML files can be compiled using a custom ANT task provided by JasperReports. If we choose to compile our JRXML files using this custom ANT target, these required libraries need to be added to the CLASSPATH variable of the ANT build file. There...

Summary

This chapter covered the required and optional libraries needed to add reporting capabilities to Java applications. All the libraries covered in this chapter are needed at both compile time and runtime. The chapter provided an explanation of the different files available for downloading on JasperReports' web site and in which conditions it is appropriate to use them. We also saw which libraries are required for report compilation under a JDK and the additional libraries required when compiling JRXML templates under a JRE. Besides, we also learned which libraries are required when using JDBC datasources for our reports, and finally the libraries required when exporting our reports to several formats.

Now that we have a sound understanding of the libraries needed to work with JasperReports, we are ready to create our first report, which is what the next chapter is based on.