Re: Next assignment - Reports

[Pete Helgren <Pete@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Nathan,

You mentioned that Jasper Reports isn't an option but I am putting the 
finishing touches on an RPG wrapper for Jasper Reports called "RPG 
Report Engine".  It is loosely based on the concepts that Scott Klement 
uses for the HSSF wrapper and Aaron Bartell uses for the RPG Chart 
Engine he wrote that wraps the jFreeChart API's.  The 0.4 release I am 
working on doesn't currently have the "static" engine that RPG Chart 
Engine has where Aaron implements the engine running in a subsystem job 
and uses data queues to process the chart requests (eliminating JVM 
startup costs) but I plan to implement something similar as soon as I 
have the API's done.  The current version would start and end a JVM with 
each submission.

The report outputs to PDF, HTML, XLS, RTF, TXT, CSV, ODT and has an 
option for emailing the completed report (using Javamail).  I am working 
on the final test case now (passing report parameters) and hope to have 
it done tonight or tomorrow because I need to deliver it to a customer 
on Thursday (!)

In this case the report designs would be static (you could use iReport 
to create them) but the report would accept parameters so you could 
capture them in your form and pass them to the RPG wrapper.

The .5 release will add the "static engine" option.

The .6 release will add a rudimentary query to Jasper conversion tool.

The .7 release will add a scaled down WYSIWYG designer (swt)

The .8 release will add a rudimentary HTML designer

The .9 release is a placeholder for requested enhancements.

Just an FYI if other alternatives don't materialize for you.

Pete



Nathan Andelin wrote:
> I'd like to thank folks on this list for their feedback on recent 
> assignments which have included a popup calendar, javascript 
> compression, a utility for maintaining user defined fields, and a 
> utility for uploading and attaching files to records in our database.
>
> My next assignment is to come up with a solution for reports.  The scope 
> includes generating, cataloging, and working with reports.  I have the 
> leeway to develop something myself, but I'm not particularly inclined to 
> reinvent the wheel.  Vendor solutions can be considered.  The project is 
> NOT well defined, but I understand that reporting is a broadly scoped 
> topic.
>
> The report library (or catalog) needs a browser-based UI and needs to be 
> more robust and extensible than the WRKOUTQ command.  Report formats 
> need to include HTML and PDF as well as ASCII text.
>
> One of my colleagues used Jasper Reports to generate High-school Student 
> Transcripts and the PDF output looked great, but runtime performance was 
> poor.
>
> For generating reports, I've considered writing an API for RPG 
> programmers to output HTML or PDF files, and cross-reference generated 
> stream files with entries in the catalog.  This is appealing to me as an 
> RPG programmer and addresses a couple concerns.  First, many of our 
> reports are produced as part of a larger process.  Posting fees to 
> accounts generates a transaction listing, for example.  Second, the API 
> that generates the report could also generate index entries in the 
> catalog.  For example, if a program generated a 60,000 page report of 
> student transcripts, it would be helpful if the viewer in the report 
> catalog could filter the page listing to include only those pages for a 
> particular student.
>
> Any thoughts?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Nathan.
>