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BIRT 2.6 Data Analysis and Reporting
BIRT 2.6 Data Analysis and Reporting

BIRT 2.6 Data Analysis and Reporting: Create, Design, Format, and Deploy Reports with the world's most popular Eclipse-based Business Intelligence and Reporting Tool

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BIRT 2.6 Data Analysis and Reporting

Chapter 2. Installing BIRT

I'm sure that after discussing the features of BIRT, you're excited to jump right in. Well, you're in luck, as I am equally excited to show how these features will help you. BIRT is a powerful application to meet one's reporting needs, but the first step is to get BIRT and install it. This can be a bit daunting, as BIRT comes in so many different flavors.

In this chapter, we will discuss the various methods of downloading BIRT and installing it. Specifically, we will cover the following:

  • Installing the standalone BIRT report designer

  • Installing the BIRT Eclipse Plugin through the Eclipse update manager

  • Installing the BIRT Eclipse Plugin Manually

  • Building BIRT from source

BIRT prerequisites

BIRT has a fairly small set of requirements to run, depending on one's needs.

Software requirements

There are no specific operating system requirements to run BIRT as it is a Java application and it should run on any platform that Java will run on. For the BIRT Report Designer, any platform...

BIRT prerequisites


BIRT has a fairly small set of requirements to run, depending on one's needs.

Software requirements

There are no specific operating system requirements to run BIRT as it is a Java application and it should run on any platform that Java will run on. For the BIRT Report Designer, any platform that runs Eclipse will work. I have successfully run and developed reports under Windows, Linux, and Mac OSX.

Note

A fair word of warning to the Mac folks: In the past I have run into some performance issues running BIRT under OSX. It has been a few years and this may not be the case anymore, but I would like to put this forth as a cautionary note. If performance of BIRT is poor under OSX, it might be advisable to try to run this tool under a Linux or Windows setup using Parallels or VMWare.

Hardware requirements

As far as hardware requirements, I would recommend at least a Pentium 3 processor with minimum of 512 MB of RAM for the BIRT Report Designer to function without problems. The...

Where do I get BIRT?


Our first task should be to download BIRT. The typical location for everything BIRT related is the Eclipse website. Browsing to http://www.eclipse.org/birt will take us to the BIRT homepage. Here, we can get the latest news about BIRT, including status of upcoming releases, news on books, conferences, and access to the BIRT newsgroups where we can ask questions about BIRT. The newsgroups are an excellent resource for BIRT questions as they are frequented by the BIRT developers and BIRT Project Management Committee members. The following is a screenshot of the current BIRT project homepage:

The homepage is also where one can get the various BIRT distributions such as the All-In-One Eclipse package. This distribution contains a prepackaged version of Eclipse, which is configured with BIRT, the BIRT Standalone Report Designer, and contains information about retrieving and building BIRT from source.

At the time of this writing, 2.6 is the latest BIRT release, which is what...

Installing BIRT from the All-In-One package


The BIRT All-in-One package is the easiest BIRT package to install, so it will be the first one we will go for. The BIRT All-in-One package is a BIRT distribution that contains a full Eclipse installation preconfigured with BIRT. I usually use this as the base installation for Eclipse and add plugins accordingly. BIRT can have some tricky issues with configuration that I have come across in the past, and since then, I avoid these by installing the All-in-One package.

As with most BIRT installations, the All-in-One package is available from the Download BIRT link. This will typically take us to the current, stable release of BIRT. The developers seem to agree that the All-in-One package is the typical way to go as it is the first link on the page. The following is a screenshot of what the BIRT download page looks like:

Additionally, older and pre-released versions of BIRT are available from the "More Downloads" section of the BIRT's download page...

Installing BIRT All-in-One under Linux


On Linux, installation is similar. The archive file containing the All-in-One package is a standard Linux tarball file. One recommendation for the Linux installers is to use Sun's Java instead of the GNU Java. The GNU Java is compliant to an older specification of Java than BIRT requires, and some features will not work correctly under Linux. Installing Sun Java under Linux can vary based on the distribution of Linux one uses and the distributor's views of the Sun license for Java. I have chronicled my experiences getting Sun Java to work under Ubuntu Linux (a free desktop-based distribution of Linux based on Debian) as well as CentOS (a free alternative to Red Hats Enterprise Linux) on my blog.

Note

OpenJDK contains a version of js.jar that needs to be replaced with BIRT's version in order for BIRT to work correctly.

Also, based on the version of BIRT we run, we will need one of two different Java versions. For BIRT versions prior to 2.2, we will need...

Installation of BIRT through the Eclipse Plugin update program


This section covers the installation of BIRT using the Eclipse plugin manager. Suppose we already have an Eclipse instance that we use regularly. Because Eclipse can typically be a rather large package, installing a separate instance may not be feasible due to disk space constraints, I.T. policy, or some other limiting factor. In cases such as these, it is more appropriate to add to our existing Eclipse installation.

If one takes it upon himself/herself to install BIRT as a set of plugins, he/she must also install all the prerequisite plugins that the BIRT designer is built on top of. This is part of what makes the All-in-One installation method preferable to the manual installation of plugins. Another reason is that this is the avenue in which I have traditionally encountered the most installation problems such as dependency issues.

In order to proceed, we must first make sure the following dependency packages are installed with...

Building BIRT from source


There are instances when it is desirable to build BIRT from its source distribution—if we are modifying BIRT, investigating a bug, or want to enhance the core of BIRT in some way. These are rare cases, but it is good to know how to build BIRT from source just in case. The following will walk you through building BIRT 2.5.2, but will work for 2.6 as well.

The first step is to retrieve the BIRT source code. The BIRT source is available from the BIRT Eclipse hompage. For 2.5.2, this is under http://download.eclipse.org/birt/downloads/build.php?build=R-R1-2_5_2-201002221500. The source package is located under the section labeled BIRT Source Code. Note the instructions saying there might be other libraries to install. We will probably need to download the Eclipse Data Tools project source code as well. We retrieve the ZIP file, but do not extract it. One will need a working copy of Eclipse in order to proceed. Here, we will be using an already extracted version of BIRT...

Summary


In this chapter, we looked at a number of different installation methods, including:

  • The All-in-One package

  • Installing through the Eclipse Software Update

We have seen where to get BIRT, how to install it, and a list of the requirements needed to run BIRT. Now, before getting into the heart of BIRT report design, we should first get acquainted with the BIRT development environment.

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Key benefits

  • Design, manage, format, and deploy high-quality reports
  • Crosstab reports using the new BIRT cube designer
  • Transform raw data into visual and interactive reports
  • Includes a case study (Building Reports for Bugzilla) at the end along with a real-world example that runs throughout the book

Description

BIRT is an Eclipse-based open source reporting system for web applications based on Java and Java EE. To address a wide range of reporting needs within a typical application, ranging from operational or enterprise reporting to multi-dimensional online analytical processing (OLAP), you need to know BIRT from head to toe. If you wish to start making reports easily and quickly, and also want to be up-to-date with the latest developments in BIRT, then this book is for you. It will guide you from scratch to develop reports using the Eclipse BIRT project. You will learn how to connect to data, use report items to display and format data, and use scripting to build advanced reports and charts.The book steers you through each step of report setup, to creating, designing, formatting, and deploying reports with data from a wide range of data sources. Its focus is on familiarizing you with the most visible and familiar product built with the BIRT framework – the BIRT Report Designer. It starts by introducing the concepts of business intelligence and open source software, and different installation methods. It will introduce you to the various visual report elements that can be used to design BIRT reports, such as the Palette and Grid components. You will learn the details of the data components of BIRT (the Data Source and the Data Set), different types of source data that BIRT supports such as XML files, flat text files, and databases, and the creation of all of the elements while connecting to Data Sources in reports and Report Projects. By the end of the book, you will be able to enhance the presentation of your report using Charts, Hyperlinks, and Drill Through. You will also be able to take advantage of the scripting capabilities that BIRT has to offer with Expressions and Event Handlers and successfully deploy BIRT reports.The book includes a case study at the end along with a real-world example that runs throughout the book.

Who is this book for?

If you are a Java developer and want to create rich reports using BIRT, then this book is for you. You will need a basic understanding of SQL to follow along.

What you will learn

  • Install and set up a BIRT environment
  • Create structured reports and add visual report elements
  • Work with data from JDBC, XML, flat files, and web services
  • Filter down data to just the information you need
  • Create cross-tab reports using the new BIRT cube designer
  • Create a shared development environment using libraries
  • Use style sheets and themes in report designs
  • Use and create Templates for rapid development of similar reports
  • Everything you need to work with BIRT s chart engine
  • Learn to script in BIRT to add business logic, manipulate report elements, and handle events
  • Deploy BIRT reports with the BIRT Viewer and Report Engine API
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Publication date : Jul 15, 2010
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Table of Contents

10 Chapters
Getting Started Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Installing BIRT Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
The BIRT Environment and First Report Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Visual Report Items Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Working with Data Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Report Parameters Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Report Projects and Libraries Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Charts, Hyperlinks, and Drilldowns Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Scripting and Event Handling Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Deployment Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
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