ruby jasper report

Tushar, I spent about a month trying to get iReport and JasperReports working with Rails and it is just a ridiculous fit. Firstly, I identified ONE PERSON who had actually got this working in Helena Montana and he strongly cautioned me to avoid this approach at all costs.

Secondly, in the reports I developed I found that only simply one level reports are possible. If you are not using JDBC you can only access the simplest data structures.

The person who wrote the "Rails with JasperReports" never really got it to work in the first place.

The guy who wrote iReports has moved onto greener pastures and the company that promotes it is hoping that someone believes their claims and becomes so stuck in a mess that they hire them for consulting.

DANGER...don't go there. David

What do you recommend for reports using Rub?. I looked into ruport and it seems very clunky and from what I read is dying.

Tushar,

IMHO Jasper Reports and iReport are great tools.

I have built a system with rails 1.1.x and some days ago I’ve successfully ported it on Rails 2.3.2, all works well (the only gotcha is a little memory leak calling IO.popen (not destructive memory leak), I think the problem is due to Passenger 2.1.3 but the system is very stable).

Using jasper reports (and iReport for design) I’m able to print some good moderate complex reports from different db (IBM AS/400, MySQL, Firebird and MS-SQL) (some reports are lables images (linked from web site…) printed on thermal printer).

I was able to print the reports calling a bash script passing parameters ex.:

lib/document.rb

class Document

def self.generate_report(report_design, output_type, jdbc_driver, jdbc_url, jdbc_user, jdbc_password, report_parameters)

  # params:

  # report_design: the name of jasper file containing the report

design

  # output_type: one of the following: pdf, xml, rtf, xls, csv, html

  # jdbc_driver: ex. org.firebirdsql.jdbc.FBDriver for FireBird db

  # jdbc_url: ex. jdbc:firebirdsql:localhost:mydb for FireBird db

  # jdbc_user: ex. sysdba for FireBird db

  # jdbc_password: ex. masterkey for FireBird db

  # report_prarameters: param_name@@param_type@@param_value ex.

filter_by_name@@String@@goofy

  # accepted param types:

  # java.util.Date (string formatted with dd/MM/yyyy)

  # java.lang.Boolean (string: "true", "1", "-1" are considered

true)

  # boolean (same as above)

  # java.lang.String (string)

  # string (same as above)

  # java.lang.Integer (integer)

  # int (same as above)

  # java.lang.Double (double)

  # double (same as above)

  # For more info see XmlJasperInterface.java

  report_design << '.jasper' if

!report_design.match(/.jasper$/)

  params = ""

  if report_parameters != nil

    report_parameters.each {|p| params <<

"-r\ "} end pipe = IO.popen “#{APP_PATH}jasper/XmlJasperInterface-#{RAILS_ENV}.sh -o#{output_type} -f"#{APP_PATH}reports/#{report_design}" -d"#{jdbc_driver}" -u"#{jdbc_url}" -n"#{jdbc_user}" -p"#{jdbc_password}" #{params}”, “r” result = pipe.read pipe.close result end end Shell script: jasper/XmlJasperInterface-production.sh #!/bin/sh INTERFACE_CLASSPATH=…/path_to_jar/XmlJasperInterface.jar

Here put all jdbc libraries (jars) into classpath

for i in path_to_application/jasper/lib/.jar; do INTERFACE_CLASSPATH=$INTERFACE_CLASSPATH:$i; done java -cp “$INTERFACE_CLASSPATH” XmlJasperInterface “$@” This is the source for XmlJasperInterface.java /

  • Inspired by the xmldatasource sample application provided with
  • jasperreports-1.1.0 */

import java.sql.Connection; import java.sql.DriverManager; import java.text.ParseException; import net.sf.jasperreports.engine.JRException; import net.sf.jasperreports.engine.JRExporterParameter; import net.sf.jasperreports.engine.JasperExportManager; import net.sf.jasperreports.engine.JasperFillManager; import net.sf.jasperreports.engine.JasperPrint; import net.sf.jasperreports.engine.export.JRCsvExporter; import net.sf.jasperreports.engine.export.JRHtmlExporter; import net.sf.jasperreports.engine.export.JRHtmlExporterParameter; import net.sf.jasperreports.engine.export.JRRtfExporter; import net.sf.jasperreports.engine.export.JRXlsExporter; import net.sf.jasperreports.engine.export.JRXlsExporterParameter; import java.util.Map; import java.util.Date; import java.text.SimpleDateFormat; import java.util.HashMap;

/**

  • @author Jonas Schwertfeger (jonas at schwertfeger dot ch)

  • @version $Id: XmlJasperInterface.java,v 1.4 2006/06/06 11:59:48 tex Exp $

  • extended by Tex 2006 */ public class XmlJasperInterface { private static final String TYPE_PDF = “pdf”; private static final String TYPE_XML = “xml”; private static final String TYPE_RTF = “rtf”; private static final String TYPE_XLS = “xls”; private static final String TYPE_CSV = “csv”; private static final String TYPE_HTML = “html”;

    private String outputType; private String compiledDesign; private String jdbcDriver; private String jdbcUrl; private String jdbcUser; private String jdbcPassword; private Map parameters = new HashMap();

    public static void main(String args) throws Exception { String outputType = null; String compiledDesign = null; String jdbcDriver = null; String jdbcUrl = null;; String jdbcUser = null;; String jdbcPassword = null; Map parameters = new HashMap();

     if (args.length < 6) {
         printUsage();
         return;
     }
     
     for (int k = 0; k < args.length; ++k) {
         if (args[k].startsWith("-o")) {
             outputType = args[k].substring(2);
         } else if (args[k].startsWith("-f")) {
             compiledDesign = args[k].substring(2);
         } else if (args[k].startsWith("-d")) {
             jdbcDriver = args[k].substring(2);
         } else if (args[k].startsWith("-u")) {
             jdbcUrl = args[k].substring(2);
         } else if (args[k].startsWith("-n")) {
             jdbcUser = args[k].substring(2);
         } else if (args[k].startsWith("-p")) {
             jdbcPassword = args[k].substring(2);
         } else if (args[k].startsWith("-r")) {
             String[] params = args[k].substring(2).split("@@");
             if (params.length == 3) {
                 String paramName = params[0];
                 String paramType = params[1];
                 String paramValue = params[2];
                 
                 if (paramName != null &&
    

paramName.trim().length() > 0 && paramType != null && paramType.trim().length() > 0 && paramValue != null && paramValue.trim().length() > 0) { if (paramType.equalsIgnoreCase(“java.util.Date”)) { Date paramDate = null; SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat(“dd/MM/yyyy”); try { paramDate = sdf.parse(paramValue); parameters.put(paramName, paramDate); } catch (ParseException ex) { ex.printStackTrace(); } } if (paramType.equalsIgnoreCase(“java.lang.Boolean”)) { if (paramValue.equalsIgnoreCase(“true”) || paramValue.equalsIgnoreCase(“1”) || paramValue.equalsIgnoreCase(“-1”)) { parameters.put(paramName, new Boolean(Boolean.TRUE)); } else { parameters.put(paramName, new Boolean(Boolean.FALSE)); } } if (paramType.equalsIgnoreCase(“boolean”)) { if (paramValue.equalsIgnoreCase(“true”) || paramValue.equalsIgnoreCase(“1”) || paramValue.equalsIgnoreCase(“-1”)) { parameters.put(paramName, new Boolean(Boolean.TRUE).booleanValue()); } else { parameters.put(paramName, new Boolean(Boolean.FALSE).booleanValue()); } } if (paramType.equalsIgnoreCase(“java.lang.String”) || paramType.equalsIgnoreCase(“String”)) { parameters.put(paramName, paramValue); } if (paramType.equalsIgnoreCase(“java.lang.Integer”)) { try { parameters.put(paramName, new Integer(paramValue)); } catch (NumberFormatException ex) { ex.printStackTrace(); } } if (paramType.equalsIgnoreCase(“int”)) { try { parameters.put(paramName, new Integer(paramValue).intValue()); } catch (NumberFormatException ex) { ex.printStackTrace(); } } if (paramType.equalsIgnoreCase(“java.lang.Double”)) { try { parameters.put(paramName, new Double(paramValue)); } catch (NumberFormatException ex) { ex.printStackTrace(); } } if (paramType.equalsIgnoreCase(“double”)) { try { parameters.put(paramName, new Double(paramValue).doubleValue()); } catch (NumberFormatException ex) { ex.printStackTrace(); } } } } } }

    XmlJasperInterface jasperInterface = new

XmlJasperInterface(outputType, compiledDesign, jdbcDriver, jdbcUrl, jdbcUser, jdbcPassword, parameters); if (!jasperInterface.report()) { System.exit(1); } }

public XmlJasperInterface(String outputType,
        String compiledDesign,
        String jdbcDriver,
        String jdbcUrl,
        String jdbcUser,
        String jdbcPassword,
        Map parameters) {
    this.outputType = outputType;
    this.compiledDesign = compiledDesign;
    this.jdbcDriver = jdbcDriver;
    this.jdbcUrl = jdbcUrl;
    this.jdbcUser = jdbcUser;
    this.jdbcPassword = jdbcPassword;
    this.parameters = parameters;
}

public boolean report() {
    try {
        Class.forName(jdbcDriver);
        Connection cn = DriverManager.getConnection(jdbcUrl,

jdbcUser, jdbcPassword);

        JasperPrint jasperPrint =

JasperFillManager.fillReport(compiledDesign, parameters, cn);

        if (TYPE_PDF.equals(outputType)) {

JasperExportManager.exportReportToPdfStream(jasperPrint, System.out); } else if (TYPE_XML.equals(outputType)) {

JasperExportManager.exportReportToXmlStream(jasperPrint, System.out); } else if (TYPE_RTF.equals(outputType)) { JRRtfExporter rtfExporter = new JRRtfExporter();

rtfExporter.setParameter(JRExporterParameter.JASPER_PRINT, jasperPrint);

rtfExporter.setParameter(JRExporterParameter.OUTPUT_STREAM, System.out); rtfExporter.exportReport(); } else if (TYPE_XLS.equals(outputType)) { JRXlsExporter xlsExporter = new JRXlsExporter();

xlsExporter.setParameter(JRExporterParameter.JASPER_PRINT, jasperPrint);

xlsExporter.setParameter(JRExporterParameter.OUTPUT_STREAM, System.out);

xlsExporter.setParameter(JRXlsExporterParameter.IS_ONE_PAGE_PER_SHEET, Boolean.TRUE); xlsExporter.exportReport(); } else if (TYPE_CSV.equals(outputType)) { JRCsvExporter csvExporter = new JRCsvExporter();

csvExporter.setParameter(JRExporterParameter.JASPER_PRINT, jasperPrint);

csvExporter.setParameter(JRExporterParameter.OUTPUT_STREAM, System.out); csvExporter.exportReport(); } else if (TYPE_HTML.equals(outputType)) { JRHtmlExporter htmlExporter = new JRHtmlExporter();

htmlExporter.setParameter(JRHtmlExporterParameter.JASPER_PRINT, jasperPrint);

htmlExporter.setParameter(JRHtmlExporterParameter.OUTPUT_STREAM, System.out); htmlExporter.exportReport(); } else { printUsage(); } } catch (JRException e) { e.printStackTrace(); return false; } catch (Exception e) { e.printStackTrace(); return false; } return true; }

private static void printUsage() {
    System.out.println("XmlJasperInterface usage:");
    System.out.println("\tjava XmlJasperInterface -oOutputType

-fCompiledDesign -dJdbcDriver -uJdbcUrl -nJdbcUser -pJdbcPassword -rReportParameters\n"); System.out.println(“\tOutput types:\t\thtml | pdf | xml | rtf | xls | csv”); System.out.println(“\tCompiled design:\tFilename of the compiled Jasper design”); System.out.println(“\tJDBC Driver:\tJdbc driver class name (jdbc jar/zip must be in lib folder)”); System.out.println(“\tJDBC Url:\tJdbc connection URL”); System.out.println(“\tJDBC User Name:\tJdbc connection user name”); System.out.println(“\tJDBC Password:\tJdbc connection password”); System.out.println(“\tReport parameters:\treport parameters (ex. -rOrderId@@java.lang.Integer@@10)”); System.out.println(“\tReport parameters types allowed:\tjava.lang.String (or String), java.lang.Integer (or int), java.lang.Double (or double), java.lang.Boolean (or boolean), java.util.Date”); System.out.println(“\tStandard output:\tReport generated by Jasper”); } } Remember that java must be installed and be visible from rails, the jdbc database drivers (.jar / .zip) must go into jasper/lib under the application root. Hope this helps !

Gregory Brown and Ruport ( and now Prawn ) are very cool. Be patient and examine their landscape and you'll find a complete solution. The weird thing about the Ruby on Rails landscape is that most developers are working on websites where printing is only a print.css approach. For those few building business model applications you must part from the pack. David