Re: PDF Performance

[Pete Helgren <Pete@xxxxxxxxxx>]

The report design is done with iReport or the BIRT Report designer and 
you can add whatever parameters to the report that you need for each 
iteration.  What RRE does is pass parameters to the report (if needed) 
and then run the report for you, outputting to the IFS or emailing the 
report.  The API is generic so you just pass it the report file and the 
output location (or email parameters if that is what you need) and it 
runs and delivers the report.  So, no, there isn't any additional Java 
programming needed for each report.

The idea is that if you had a "stock" report, like an invoice, that you 
just needed to pass a customer ID and date to, you could have a green 
screen or web front end that prompted for the parameters and then it ran 
the report.  So, depending upon the report that you have designed, you 
pass the API the parameters for the report, the file location of the 
report template and the output options and RRE takes care of running and 
delivery.  The assumption is that the report has already been designed 
and just needs to be run.

The iText stuff is a bit more involved because you are programmatically 
creating the report on the fly.  You pass the API the report title and 
heading, you pass the column headings you want, and then iteratively 
write the data to the report columns. It is roughly analogous to using 
an internally defined report format except you are writing to PDF rather 
than spool file.

Pete


On 5/12/2010 10:17 AM, Aaron Bartell wrote:
> I have been meaning to dive into your RPG Report Engine for awhile and I
> just now skimmed your presentation.  Does each new report require Java
> coding to be done?  I wasn't quite sure on that.
>
> Aaron Bartell
> http://mowyourlawn.com
> http://mowyourlawn.com/blog/
>
>
> On Wed, May 12, 2010 at 11:06 AM, Pete Helgren<Pete@xxxxxxxxxx>  wrote:
>
>    
> > FWIW I presented a session at the recent Orlando Common Conference on
> > "Open Source Report Writing Tools for IBM i".  You can find the
> > presentation here:
> >
> > http://www.opensource4i.com/Open_Source_Report_Writing_Tools_for_IBM_i%20-_Orlando_2010.pdf
> >
> > I also finished up some additional work on the RPG Report Engine which
> > now has an RPG wrapper for iText (rudimentary) and can run reports from
> > RPG created for Jasper or BIRT.  The BIRT addition took the zip file
> > from about 10mb to 150mb (!) and I haven't had time to strip out jars
> > and plugins that aren't relevant to the BIRT report features that the
> > Report Engine supports but it is all open source and the complete (and
> > large) zip file can be found here:
> > http://www.opensource4i.com/downloads/2008042811495836/rrepackage.zip
> > Even with my new Comcast service it'll probably take a while to download.
> >
> > RRE still suffers from not having a "server" piece in place that handles
> > the problem of JVM warm up.  A report "server" is the next thing that
> > will be added but you might find the iText stuff useful for generating
> > PDF directly from RPG.
> >
> > Pete
> >
> >
> >