I have been working with the new M5 release of BIRT 2.2 for a presentation on extensions at EclipseCon next month. One of the extension points that I will be featuring is the Emitter extension. The M5 release of BIRT has made a significant enhancement to the emitter extension that I wanted to cover in brief today.
In the past emitters were relatively straight-forward: you create a class that extends that either a) implements IContentEmitter or b) extends ContentEmitterAdapter. Within that class you place code to write to an output (stream, file, etc.) and then you visit the various ReportItem components writing the value of the component and any additional information required by your emitter (HTML, PDF, RTF...) It is not an easy task, but it is relatively straight-forward.
The problem would come up when it came time to use your new emitter. It turns out that the ReportEngine code that created and invoked the emitter needed to be modified/patched to add your emitter. This required changing the base Eclipse code and the addition of some new classes. Then this code needed to be re-distributed to the appropriate locations. Not difficult stuff, but not particularly clean. It just made it more difficult for people to use your emitter. So rather than focusing on your emitter code, you had to worry about writing HOW TO IMPLEMENT documentation. Ewwww documentation....
In BIRT 2.2, starting with the M5 build, new emitter plugin extension gets picked up and used automatically. All you have to do is make sure your jar file is in the plugins directory of either the WebViewer (WEB-INF/platform/plugins) or the ReportEngine (/plugins).
I hope to have a demo of this functionality up on either this site or the BIRT Eclipse site some time after the conference.
Scott
to ease development and integration of custom emitters would be great - is the new feature/procedure documented somewhere??
ReplyDeletethanks for the info
achim
hallo,
ReplyDeletei have a problem getting the Report Designer to output to pdf. i have the Birt 2.1.2 All-in-One installed. When i click on the "View Report as PDF" button inside Eclipse, I always get
org.eclipse.birt.report.service.api.ReportServiceException: Report engine fails to create extension to handle this request.
i have also searched in web in order to get the answer.
i have copied iText1.3 jar in plugins/com.lowagie.itext_*/lib directory, also it was installed in
ReportEngine\plugin\com.lowagie.itext\lib and WebViewerExample\WEB-INF\platform\plugins\com.lowagie.itext\lib
but still i get the same problem.
Can anybody please help me
thanks for help
What is the filesize of the iText jar you have in the lib directory?
ReplyDeletethe itext-1.3.3.jar has 1.172KB.
ReplyDeleteYou need iText1.3 not 1.3.3.
ReplyDeleteJason
Hi Jason,
ReplyDeleteit works with iText-1.3 :-), it seems that birt2.1.2 does not like iText-1.3.3.
many thanks for your help
I'm having trouble with the new Birt 2.2 emitter feature. Just trying the most basic example, I use the genReport batch file in the ReportEngine directory and provide samples\hello_world.rptdesign as the input. If I use -f html everything is fine. If I use -f pdf (or anything else) it complains about unsupported format. But it works fine in 2.1.2.
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't seem to be auto-finding the emitter plugins in the plugins directory. Am I missing something?
Thank you
What java version are you using?
ReplyDeleteI just tried with 1.5 and everything worked.
Have you modified the ReportEngine directory at all?
Jason
Indeed. Turns out a colleague had removed some db files b/c that's what some other website said to do to stop a warning message about sampdb. Fresh install worked fine. Merci.
ReplyDeleteI have a problem with PDF report on IE where as it works on FF.
ReplyDeleteBelow is the URL to generate PDF through a BIRT API Deployed on Tomcat server.
https://10.0.2.71/reports/frameset?__format=pdf&__report=UserActivity/ActivityReportForUsers.rptdesign&RP_st=06/11/2008 01:40:12 PM&RP_et=06/11/2008 02:40:12 PM&RP_sid=f5efbf35fd301947_6205ef3_11a7915ef72_-7323&RP_tz=GMT-07%3A00&RP_userGroup=1&RP_unknown=false&RP_primarySortField=lusr&RP_primarySortOrder=asc&RP_st1=01/01/1970 00:00:00 AM&RP_numrows=10000&__id=40140924
On IE 7 it gives blank window and no PDF comes up. When sniffed the response through HTTP debugger, PDf response is coming from server but it is corrupted(Not opening up through Acrobat reader 8.1.2).
Where as same URL works fine with firefox 2.0.0 giving proper PDF report.
Environment
Birt Runtime: 2.2.1
PDF jars: itext-1.5.2.jar, itextasian-1.5.2.jar
PDF Emitter: org.eclipse.birt.report.engine.emitter.pdf_2.2.1.r22x_v20070921.jar
It will be great if any one can point out where thing can go wrong.
Thanks for your time.
hi frnds
ReplyDeletei m not able to gel csv format in tomcat
its giving error for ReportServiceException:
for which no help is there
so plz help me out if anybody knows abt how to use csv emitter in tomcat
thx.
HI..
ReplyDeleteI am vineet and new to blogger.com
and I have got stuck on BIRT while running the a .rptdesign file..
I deployed and did all required stuff and on local server , it is working fine .
but the momenet I Transfer it on Dev server ..
it shows the following error
null; nested exception is:
org.eclipse.birt.report.service.api.ReportServiceException: The output format html is not supported.
Please help on this ...
I am using BIRT2.3
at the same time there is one confusion in my mind that ..
my local app sever 5.5.17 and Dev app server is 5.5.20
This is causing the problem??..
Please let me know on earliest
I am deep need of this solution
Thanks in advance
vineet
Vineet,
ReplyDeleteSounds like the viewer was not deployed correctly on the Dev machine. Either a permissions problem or an install issue.
Jason
Hi Jason,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your reply...
I think you are right.. And I also came to one conclusion is that since I am having all required dependencies in my local machine’s D:\birt-report-designer-all-in-one-2_2_2\eclipse\plugins folder
And IN my Dev server , I am missing these dependies/plug-ins.
I guess This may be root of problem...
And to resolve this issue I may have to map these dependensies in my dev server
Please give you comment this..
Thanks in advance
With Regards
Vineet
How are you deploying BIRT on the dev machine?
ReplyDeleteHi Jason,
ReplyDeleteProject that we do have on dev machine is an independent an instance It means it is not deployed into any IDE like eclipse.
we directly start and stop the server using some shell scrip ..
But let me tell you one more thing is that. I had combined the web.xml of my project and web.xml of birt-runtime-2_3_2_2 and at the same time I had merged their lib folder too ..
so now I have made everything in single project on local machine.
and please see my file structure on local machine
D:\SmartMonitor1\SmartMonitor3.0\web\birt-viewer\documents
D:\SmartMonitor1\SmartMonitor3.0\web\birt-viewer\report
D:\SmartMonitor1\SmartMonitor3.0\web\birt-viewer\webcontent\birt
D:\SmartMonitor1\SmartMonitor3.0\web\WEB-INF\lib
D:\SmartMonitor1\SmartMonitor3.0\web\WEB-INF\platform
D:\SmartMonitor1\SmartMonitor3.0\web\WEB-INF\tlds
D:\SmartMonitor1\SmartMonitor3.0\web\WEB-INF\viewer.properties
D:\SmartMonitor1\SmartMonitor3.0\web\WEB-INF\web.xml
D:\SmartMonitor1\SmartMonitor3.0\web\WEB-INF\weblogic.xml
D:\SmartMonitor1\SmartMonitor3.0\web\WEB-INF\web-template
HI Jason,,
ReplyDeleteone more thing Tomcat version on my local machine is 5.5.17
and on Dev server it is 5.5.20
Thanks
vineet
Hi Jason,
ReplyDeleteI was trying to do some R&D fro side sao I found that
org.eclipse.birt.report.engine.emitter.html_2.3.2.r232_v20090521.jar
was corrupted in DEv server's plugin folder..
So finally I got rid of thay annoying error mesage...
But now there is another error I am getting which is mention below
Cannot open the connection for the driver: org.eclipse.birt.report.data.oda.jdbc.
Cannot load JDBC Driver class: oracle.jdbc.driver.OracleDriver.
Caused by: org.eclipse.birt.report.data.oda.jdbc.JDBCException: Cannot load JDBC Driver class: oracle.jdbc.driver.OracleDriver.
Caused by: org.eclipse.birt.data.engine.core.DataException: Cannot open the connection for the driver: org.eclipse.birt.report.data.oda.jdbc.Cannot load JDBC Driver class: oracle.jdbc.driver.OracleDriver.
and here I am givin g the details of some of the jar file whcih are under
platfoem/plug-ins
org.eclipse.birt.report.data.oda.xml_2.3.2.r232_v20090211.jar
org.eclipse.birt.report.data.oda.jdbc.dbprofile_2.3.2.r232_v20090211.jar
org.eclipse.birt.report.data.oda.jdbc.dbprofile.sampledb_2.3.2.r232_v20090211.jar
org.eclipse.birt.report.data.adapter_2.3.2.r232_v20090211.jar
PLease help on this .. Deadline of my project is approachin...
Thanks in advance
vineet
Did you copy the driver jar to the jdbc plugin's drivers directory on the dev machine?
ReplyDeleteHi Jason,,
ReplyDeleteI did not understand by jdbc plugin's drivers directory on the dev machine
I am using Oracle 10g
and I ave coped classes12.jar ,ojdbc14.jat files into platform/plugins directory and WEB-INF directory of dev server
Thanks Vineet
Look for this plugin in your plugins directory:
ReplyDeleteorg.eclipse.birt.report.data.oda.jdbc_version
There is a drivers directory in it. Put it in that folder.
Hi Jason,
ReplyDeleteI did that .. and it is working smoothly...
Thank u very much ..
With Warm regards
Vineet
Hi Jason,
ReplyDeleteAs I was in touch with you for getting my Birt chart smoothly working ...
But after almost a month ,I have got stuck with a strange problem ..
Exception I am facing…
Chart NewChart1:
- Column binding "1.0*SUM(OFFICE_SPACEUSED)/SUM(OFFICE_ACTIVE_USERS)" has referred to a data set column "1.0*SUM(OFFICE_SPACEUSED)/SUM(OFFICE_ACTIVE_USERS)" which does not exist.
data.engine.ColumnBindingReferToInexistColumn ( 1 time(s) )
detail : org.eclipse.birt.report.engine.api.EngineException: Column binding "1.0*SUM(OFFICE_SPACEUSED)/SUM(OFFICE_ACTIVE_USERS)" has referred to a data set column "1.0*SUM(OFFICE_SPACEUSED)/SUM(OFFICE_ACTIVE_USERS)" which does not exist. at org.eclipse.birt.report.engine.executor.ExtendedGenerateExecutor.execute(ExtendedGenerateExecutor.java:70) at org.eclipse.birt.report.engine.executor.ExtendedItemExecutor.execute(ExtendedItemExecutor.java:61) at
this is the stackTracke that I Got..
now situaltion is that .
my charts are working fine on Dev server and QA server but on production server
it shows the above mentioned execption But interesting part is that this exception is coming only for 1 chart rest other charts are working fine even in production
so I thought that probably the problem is there with my query Then I asked DB person to execute the respective query on production DB server which is also working fine ..
and please find the query also
select 1.0 * sum(office_spaceused)/sum(office_active_users) , '0-3' from office
where env_id IN (3) and dateDiff('month',office_createdon,trunc(sysdate)) >=0
and dateDiff('month',office_createdon,trunc(sysdate)) <3 union all select 1.0 * sum(office_spaceused)/sum(office_active_users) , '3-6' from office
where env_id IN (3) and dateDiff('month',office_createdon,trunc(sysdate)) >=3 and dateDiff('month',office_createdon,trunc(sysdate)) <6 union all
select 1.0 * sum(office_spaceused)/sum(office_active_users) , '6-9' from office where env_id IN (3) and dateDiff('month',office_createdon,trunc(sysdate)) >=6 and
dateDiff('month',office_createdon,trunc(sysdate)) <9 union all select 1.0 * sum(office_spaceused)/sum(office_active_users), '9-12' from office
where env_id IN (3) and dateDiff('month',office_createdon,trunc(sysdate)) >=9 and dateDiff('month',office_createdon,trunc(sysdate)) <12 union all
select 1.0 * sum(office_spaceused)/sum(office_active_users) ,'12-15' from office where env_id IN (3) and dateDiff('month',office_createdon,trunc(sysdate)) >=12 and
dateDiff('month',office_createdon,trunc(sysdate)) <15 union all select 1.0 * sum(office_spaceused)/sum(office_active_users) , '15-18' from office
where env_id IN (3) and dateDiff('month',office_createdon,trunc(sysdate)) >=15 and dateDiff('month',office_createdon,trunc(sysdate)) <18 union all
select 1.0 * sum(office_spaceused)/sum(office_active_users) , '18+' from office where env_id IN (3) and dateDiff('month',office_createdon,trunc(sysdate)) >=18 ";
This query is working fine on all production/dev/QA..
and DB version on is also same on all prod/dev/QA..
please help on that Since it is production issue
The chart is complaining that the column binding (see binding tab in properties editor) is complaining that a referenced data set column does not exist. Can you drop a table in front of the chart that is tied to the same dataset and verify it works?
ReplyDeleteHI,
ReplyDeleteYes Jason I did that and and I get the all records from that particular table along with chart .,
and one more thing jason . if problem is there with column binding then how is it working on Dev server and QA server??.
Are you saying if you drop the table in front the chart works?
ReplyDeleteI am not certain why it works in one environment but not the other.