pyJasper 0.41

h1. pyJasper

pyJasper is a set of python based tools to handle JasperReports.
Since jasper reports is a Java application you need Java installed.

Jython (bundled with pyJasper) is used to access the JasperReports
library via HTTP. Your pure Python clients can transparently generate
JasperReport Documents.

See "StackOverflow":http://stackoverflow.com/questions/458340/is-there-a-better-layout-language-than-html-for-printing/459352#459352 and "this Blogposting":http://blogs.23.nu/c0re/2008/07/antville-18473/ to understand what problem pyJasper is trying to solve.

h2. Usage

h3. Servlet Interface

The servlet keeps no state at all. You have to supply it with an XML datasource, an XPath expression for that datasource and the JRXML report design. You get back the generated PDF or an plain text error message. The respective data has to be submitted via the form variables 'xpath', 'design' and 'xmldata'.

To try it out you can use curl. E.g. do to pyjasper/backend and start the jetty servlet container (sh pyJasper-httpd.sh). Then use curl in another window to request rendering of a PDF.

curl -X POST --form xpath=//lieferscheine/lieferschein
--form design=@reports/Lieferschein.jrxml
--form xmldata=@sample-xml/Lieferschein.xml
http://localhost:8080/pyJasper/jasper.py > test.pdf

test.pdf should now contain a rendered PDF document.

h3. Python interface

You are expected to subclass @pyjasper.JasperGenerator@ and call it's @generate_pdf()@ function. Usually you only have to overwrite the @__init__()@ and @generate_xml(self, ...)@ functions and use the the Python "ElementTree":http://docs.python.org/lib/module-xml.etree.ElementTree.html API to generate an xml-tree. E.g.

class MyPDFGenerator(JasperGenerator):
"""Jasper-Generator for Greetingcards"""
def __init__(self):
super(MovementGenerator, self).__init__()
self.reportname = 'reports/Greeting.jrxml'
self.xpath = '/greetings/greeting'
self.root = ET.Element('gretings')

def generate_xml(self, tobegreeted):
"""Generates the XML File used by Jasperreports"""

ET.SubElement(self.root, 'generator').text = __revision__
for name in tobegreeted:
xml_greeting = ET.SubElement(self.root, 'greeting')
ET.SubElement(xml_greeting, "greeting_to").text = unicode(name)
ET.SubElement(xml_greeting, "greeting_from").text = u"Max"
return xmlroot

Now you can use @MyPDFGenerator@ like this:

generator = MyPDFGenerator()
pdf = generator.generate(['nik', 'tobias', 'chris', 'daniel'])
open('/tmp/greetingcard.pdf', 'w').write(pdf)

The Python client finds the URL of the Jasper Servlet by checking the @PYJASPER_SERVLET_URL@ environment variable. It this Variable is not set, a default value of @http://localhost:8080/pyJasper/jasper.py@ is used.

h2. Installation

Get it at the "Python Cheeseshop":http://pypi.python.org/pypi/pyJasper or at "GitHub":http://github.com/hudora/pyJasper
To install the Python client interface just execute @python setup.py install@ as administrator. This should install the requred dependency ([http://code.google.com/p/httplib2/ httplib2]) automatically. For the Server part there exist no automatic setup script. Just copy @pyjasper/backend/@ to a suitable location and start @pyJasper-httpd.sh@ I use Dan Bernsteins [http://cr.yp.to/daemontools/supervise.html supervise] tool for running the Jetty server.


h2. History

* *0.2.1** public release (Summer 2008)
* *0.2** release based on Jetty/Servlets (late 2007)
* *0.1.1** public release on hosted-projects.com
* *0.1** release based on long running Java Process (late 2006)
* *0.01* one Java process per document (2006)

h2. Files

* client.py - contains high-level Python functions for report generation. Should theoretically be able to work with report generators other than JasperReports. So far builds on JasperClient.py.
* backend/ - contains tools to drive JasperReports and actually build reports. The backend was once based on XmlJasperInterface by Jonas Schwertfeger but hase benn moving away from it for some time.
* backend/lib - JasperReports and Jython Java Libraries
* reports - report source files (*.jrxml)
* sample-xml - sample XML files to work with reports
* sample-pdf - sample PDFs generated by using reports with sample XML


h2. Links

* "JasperReports":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JasperReports
* "How to Integrate JasperReports with Ruby on Rails":http://wiki.rubyonrails.org/rails/pages/howtointegratejasperreports
* "jasapp":http://www.vmware.com/appliances/directory/311 a VMWare Virtuall Appliance providing a JasperReports Interface
* http://geraldo.sourceforge.net/