JasperStarter - Running JasperReports from command line

JasperStarter is an opensource command line launcher and batch compiler for JasperReports.

The official homepage is jasperstater.cenote.de.

It has the following features:

• Run any JasperReport that needs a jdbc, csv, xml, json, jsonql or empty datasource
• Use with any database for which a jdbc driver is available
• Run reports with subreports
• Execute reports that need runtime parameters. Any parameter whose class has a string constructor is accepted. Additionally the following types are supported or have special handlers:
  • date, image (see usage), locale
• Optionally prompt for report parameters
• Print directly to system default or given printer
• Optionally show printer dialog to choose printer
• Optionally show printpreview
• Export to file in the following formats:
  • pdf, rtf, xls, xlsMeta, xlsx, docx, odt, ods, pptx, csv, csvMeta, html, xhtml, xml, jrprint
• Export multiple formats in one commanding call
• Compile, print and export in one commanding call
• View, print or export previously filled reports (use jrprint file as input)
• Can compile a whole directory of .jrxml files.
• Integrate in non Java applications (for example PHP, Python)
• Binary executable on Windows
• Includes JasperReports so this is the only tool you need to install
• "Diskless" operation using stdin and stdout for input data and output.

Requirements:

• Java 1.8 or higher
• A JDBC 2.1 driver for your database

Quickstart

• Download JasperStarter from Sourceforge.
• Extract the distribution archive to any directory on your system.
• Add the ./bin directory of your installation to your searchpath (on Windows: invoke setup.exe).
• Put your jdbc drivers in the ./jdbc directory of your installation or use --jdbc-dir to point to a different directory.

Invoke JasperStarter with -h to get an overview:

$ jasperstarter -h

Invoke JasperStarter with process -h to get help on the process command:

$ jasperstarter process -h

Example with reportparameters:

$ jasperstarter pr report.jasper -t mysql -u myuser -f pdf -H myhost \
 -n mydb -o report -p secret -P CustomerNo=10 StartFrom=2012-10-01

Example with hsql using database type generic:

$ jasperstarter pr report.jasper -t generic -f pdf -o report -u sa \
--db-driver org.hsqldb.jdbcDriver \
--db-url jdbc:hsqldb:hsql://localhost

For more information take a look in the docs directory of the distibution archive or read the Usage page online.

Python Integration using public API

JasperStarter exposes an API which can be used with jpy to provide direct access from Python:

#
# Load the JVM. See the jpy docs for details.
#
import jpyutil
jpyutil.init_jvm(jvm_maxmem='512M', jvm_classpath=['.../jasperstarter.jar'])
#
# Load the Java types needed.
#
import jpy
Arrays = jpy.get_type('java.util.Arrays')
File = jpy.get_type('java.io.File')
Report = jpy.get_type('de.cenote.jasperstarter.Report')
Config = jpy.get_type('de.cenote.jasperstarter.Config')
DsType = jpy.get_type('de.cenote.jasperstarter.types.DsType')
#
# Create the JasperStarter configuration. See Config.java for details.
#
config = Config()
config.setInput('jsonql.jrxml')
config.setOutput('contacts.pdf')
config.setDbType(DsType.json)
config.setDataFile(File('contacts.json'))
config.setJsonQuery('contacts.person')
config.setOutputFormats(Arrays.asList([]))
#
# Run the report. See Report.java for details.
#
instance = Report(config, File(config.getInput()))
instance.fill()
instance.exportPdf()

See the examples/python directory for a fuller example.

Release Notes

See Changes for a history of changes.

Known Bugs

For upcoming issues see Issues

Feedback

Feedback is always welcome! If you have any questions or proposals, don't hesitate to write to our discussion forum. If you found a bug or you are missing a feature, log into our Issuetracker and create a bug or feature request.

If you like the software you can write a review :-)

Development

The sourcecode is available at bitbucket.org/cenote/jasperstarter, the project website is hosted at Sourceforge.

JasperStarter is build with Maven.

On Linux 64 bit the launch4j-maven-plugin may fail. In this case, may you need the following libs in a 32 bit version:

• z1
• ncurses5
• bz2-1.0

Install on Ubuntu 14.04 or above:

$ sudo apt-get install lib32z1 lib32ncurses5 lib32bz2-1.0

Install on Fedora 27 or above:

$sudo dnf install ncurses-compat-libs.i686

To get a distribution package run:

$ mvn package -P release

or if you build from the current default branch you better use:

$ mvn package -P release,snapshot

Attention! You cannot execute target/jasperstarter.jar without having it's dependencies in ../lib ! See dev profile below!

If you want to build the Windows setup.exe, you need to have nsis in your search path (works on linux too, you can find a compiled release in the sourceforge download folder build-tools for your convenience) an add the windows-setup profile to your build:

$ mvn package -P release,windows-setup

or

$ mvn package -P release,windows-setup,snapshot

While developing you may want to have a quicker build. The dev profile excludes some long running reports and the compressed archives. Instead it puts the build result into target/jasperstarter-dev-bin.

$ mvn package -P dev

Now you can execute JasperStarter without IDE:

$ target/jasperstarter-dev-bin/bin/jasperstarter

or

$ java -jar target/jasperstarter-dev-bin/lib/jasperstarter.jar

During development you might want not to be annoyed by tests. So the following options are useful:

$ mvn package -P dev -D skipTests

or

$ mvn package -P dev -D maven.test.failure.ignore=true

To run JasperStarter from within your IDE add --jdbc-dir jdbc to the argument list of your run configuration. Otherwise you will get an error:

Error, (...)/JasperStarter/target/classes/jdbc is not a directory!

Put your jdbc drivers in the ./jdbc directory of the project to invoke JasperStarter from within your IDE to call up a database based report.

License

Copyright 2012-2015 Cenote GmbH.

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at

http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.