Re: Java-Based Web Reporting -- JAVA400-L

Dave,

We are still early in the cycle on the use of Jasper for reporting butso far it is looking good. We develop Open Source school administrationsoftware (G/L,A/P,Warehouse,Fixed Assets, Payroll, H/R, StudentGrading-Attendance-Scheduling, the whole tamale) We use a couple ofdifferent development methodologies: Java and a RPG-CGI type ofapplication called Relational Web. Java already had a pretty good set ofreport rendering tools out there so that is how we ended up withJasper. On the designing side, as I said before, we are still workingon getting beyond just having a predefined set of sort and selectionoptions (check boxes and drop down list selections on an HTML form).The best report design approach would be allowing a user to drag anddrop stuff on to a form and fire it off. We have a ways to go before weare there.As for performance, we do have a student transcript that pulls data fromseveral files and uses sub reports to format and present them on thetranscript form itself. On our very low end model 800 (V5R2M0) ittakes about 15 seconds to build the report. I think on the i5 wedesigned it for, it takes 2-3 seconds. It runs pure Java on the iSeriesusing Tomcat as the servlet container. My guess is that depending uponthe size of the box and it's utilization you will get better or worseperformance. Also, optimizing the SQL is helpful in improvingperformance as well. At it's simplest: 1. We build a report form usingiReport that takes parameters. 2. We build an HTML page that allows theusers to chose the values being passed to the report. 3. We call aJava servlet passing it the report parameters so it renders the report.That is about it.

With a little luck I will have working demo code with a DB library withsample data so that it can be installed and run "out of the box" in thenext week or so. Your iSeries will need to be set up to run Tomcat(plenty of info on this list on how to do that) but that is about it.I'll e-mail you off list once I have it all packaged up.If you are itching to try some stuff, are familiar with Java, andalready have Tomcat installed on your iSeries, I can probably give you afew pointers to get you moving on a simple report to start with (if youuse the Eclipse IDE, that is a plus for me to give you pointers).


Pete


dsager@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

Pete & Aaron,

Long story short:  I'm re-writing a VB application that accesses
iSeries data.  It used ActiveReports to generate reports from a
custom-built query engine.

The query engine was redeveloped using RPG and WebFaced screens,
with the final result being an SQL statement.  I'm throwing the
results to a subfile (so they can select items to work with) but
would rather having something a bit stronger for "physical" output
(ActiveReports provides a variety of destinations: printer, .xls, .pdf,
etc.).  I was toying with the idea of using ASC's Sequel line of
query tools, but they don't seem to have all of the output options
that Jasper does.

That said, it sounds like I would have something similar to what
Pete has done.  One of the objectives of the re-write was to keep
most / all of the processing on the iSeries (we have 60+ plants
that will be hitting this so response time is a significant factor).
I'd love to hear how you solved this, Pete.


Pete@xxxxxxxxxx wrote:

Anyone have any tips on installing this on iSeries ?

Pete Helgren wrote:

I guess I'd ask the same question that Aaron asked:  What is the RPG
needed for?

In our case, we have "pre-built" the SQL statement for the selects and
we allow the user to chose sorting and some column information and then
we update the SQL and compile and run the Jasper report.  If the "front'
end stuff is already done in RPG and you just want a nicer way to output
the content (and have multiple output options) then using the RPG to
build the SQL and passing that sql statement to the Jasper report would
be possible.  You could store the jrxml in the IFS and use the IFS API's
to open and update the file and then compile the Jasper report before
running it.

We are heading this direction, allowing the user more design freedom
(report writing) rather than presenting just a list of canned reports
with limited sorting and selecting options, but we are not there yet.
And, we'd probably use a more graphical front end for report design
(like iReport) rather than RPG.

But, if your RPG program already creates the SQL statement, hooking that
up to Jasper wouldn't be *too* hard (famous last words).

Pete Helgren



dsager@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

Pete,

By chance have you (or anyone else) tried to interface either iReport
and/or Jasper with RPG?  I have a WebFaced application that is in dire

need

of a good ad hoc reporting tool (I already have the front-end for field
selection, sort / selection criteria, etc.) and this looks like it would

be

more than great.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Dave Sager



Pete Helgren wrote:

Aaron,

We use Jasper reports which works very well and we use iReport as the
designer tool.  It is a great free, open source combination.  You'll
find iReport much easier to use than Query/400 and the formatting is
much superior to  Crystal Reports (IMHO).

iReports generates a compiled object that Jasper then uses to render the
report.

You'll find it here: http://ireport.sourceforge.net/

Also DataVision has some useful features and produces nicely formatted
reports.

All of these applications are Open Source.

Pete Helgren


albartell wrote:

Does anybody know of some good and FREE (or near free) web reporting

tools

written in Java? The kind of reporting I am talking about is "on the fly"
build your own queries type deal, similar to Query/400.

So far I have found Bzbyte reports which has a lot of nice features and

is

open source. http://www.bzbyte.com/a/bzbyte/Products.jsp

I also have demo'd PlanetJavaInc's WOW product and am going to get a

quote

for their Professional version (I need input capable fields for report
search criteria). I also am not sure if this product supports MySQL or

not.

Thanks for any info people can provide.

Aaron Bartell