Re: Next assignment - Reports

Aaron Bartell wrote:
I have been looking to create an open source reporting
project based on the Eclipse BIRT stuff. Basically you could
have business users build the report in Eclipse and then
upload the report definition to the iSeries.

I stepped through the Flash demo of the BIRT designer and saw the familiar metaphor of defining data sources (SQL Queries), then dragging and dropping data source elements onto report bands (header, footer, groupings, detail, etc.). I understand that the designer creates an XML document containing data source definitions and report layout definitions and also allows users to write Javascript which can be interpreted by the runtime engine to handle special data and report formatting requirements.

Most of this was intuitive to me because the layout definitions are similar to HTML, and I've used a number of PC based query and report design tools over the years. One difference was that Javascript is interpreted by the runtime engine on the server and used to handle special layout and data munging requirements.

I understand how the XML (data source and report layout and script definition) file could be uploaded to the server.

From there a Java component could be written that accepts
input from an RPG process to occupy the BIRT report with
business data. This is similar in concept to my RPGChartEngine
tooling (http://mowyourlawn.com/RPGChartEngine.html).

This is the part I don't understand. If the XML file contains data source definitions, SQL query definitions, report layout definitions, and Javascript for handling special data munging and layout requirements, then what would be the purpose of RPG? Just to call the runtime engine to generate the report? Pass parameters?

Nathan.