How to Create Jasper Reports Using iReport Designing Tool

iReport Designer is an open supply authoring tool that may produce complicated reports from any quite Java application through the JasperReports library. it's written in 100 percent pure Java and is distributed with ASCII text file in step with the antelope General Public License. 

options of iReport

• Support for relative dates.
• HTML5 charts.
• XML/A support of MSAS.
• Nested tables.
• 100% support of JasperReports XML tags.
• application editor for the creation of reports. it's complete tools for drawing rectangles, lines, ellipses, text fields, labels, charts, subreports, and crosstabs.
• Built-in editor with syntax highlight for writing expressions

Platform needs

iReport wants the Sun Java two SDK to run, Version 1.5 or newer. If you wish to create the tool from the ASCII text file or write a plug-in, you'll conjointly would like NetBeans IDE and therefore the NetBeans platform half dozen.5.1. As for hardware, like all Java programs, iReport consumes a great deal of RAM, therefore it's necessary to possess a minimum of 256 MB of memory available still as regarding fifty MB of free space.

The Report Life Cycle 

When we place confidence in a report, solely the ultimate document involves mind, like a PDF or surpass file. however, this can be solely the ultimatestage of a report lifecycle, that starts with the report style. planning a report suggests that making some type of guide, suchas a kind wherever we have a tendency to leave an area that may be full of knowledge. Some parts of a page outlined during this approach square measure reused,others stretch to suit the content, and so on.

When we square measure finished, we have a tendency to save this guide as AN XML file sub-type that we have a tendency to decision JRXML (“JR” for JasperReports). Itcontains all the fundamental info regarding the report layout, as well as complicated formulas to perform calculations, AN optional query to retrieve knowledge out of an information supply, and different practicality.

A JRXML cannot be used as-is. For performance reasons, and for the advantage of the program which will run the report, iReportcompiles the JRXML ANd saves it as a feasible binary, an opaque gem file. An opaque gem file is that the guide that JasperReportsuses to get a report melding the guide and therefore the knowledge retrieved from the information supply. The result's a “meta print”—aninterim output report—that will then be exported in one or additional formats, giving life to the ultimate document.The life cycle is often divided into 2 distinct action sets:

• Tasks dead throughout the event part (design and coming up with of the report, and compilation of an opaque gem file supply, the JRXML).
• Tasks that has got to be dead in runtime (loading of the opaque gem file, filling of the report, and export of the print in an exceedingly final format).

The main role of iReport within the cycle is to style a report and build AN associated opaque gem file, tho' it's ready to previewthe result and export it altogether the supported formats. iReport conjointly provides support for a large variety of information sources and permitsthe user to check their own knowledge sources, thereby changing into a whole set for report development and testing.