We discussed the structure of a simple report template in the chapter Getting Started. On similar lines, JasperReports structures the report template into multiple sections. Sections are portions of the report that have a specified height and can contain report objects like lines, rectangles, images, or text fields.

The report engine iterates through the virtual records of the supplied report data source, at report filling time. Depending on each section”s defined behavior, the engine then renders each report section when appropriate. For instance, the detail section is rendered for each record in the data source. When page breaks occur, the page header and page footer sections are rendered as needed.

In JasperReports, terminology and report sections are also called as report bands. Sections are made up of one or more bands. These sections are filled repeatedly at report-generating time and prepare the final document.

Main Sections

A report template in JasperReports has the following main sections −

<title></title>

<pageheader></pageheader>

<columnheader></columnheader>

<groupheader></groupheader>

<detail></detail>

<groupfooter></groupfooter>

<columnfooter></columnfooter>

<pagefooter></pagefooter>

<lastpagefooter></lastpagefooter>

<summary></summary>

<nodata></nodata>

<background></background>

The following table summarizes each of the sections −

Section, Elements and Attribute Relation

The following diagram shows the elements and attributes relationship in a section of a report.

Section Elements

All the above mentioned report sections are optional. But any report template will have at least one such section. Each of these sections contains a single <band> element as its only sub-element. A <band> can contain zero or more following sub-elements −

<line>, <rectangle>, <ellipse>, <image>, <staticText>, <textField>, <subReport>, or <elementGroup>

Each of these elements must contain a single <reportElement> as its first element (except elementGroup). A <reportElement> determines how data is laid out for that particular element. Unlike variables and parameters, report elements are not required to have a name, because normally you do not need to obtain any individual element inside a report template.

The table below summarizes the attributes of <reportElement> −

Section Attributes

Following are the attributes of a report section −

Height

Height of the section specifies the height in pixels for that particular section and is very important in the overall report design.

Print When Expression

A Boolean expression that determines whether the section should be printed or not.

Split Allowed

A flag indicating whether the section is allowed to split when it does not fit on the current page. If true, the section will be transferred to the next page. Note that in case, the section does not fit on the next page, then the section will be split regardless of the flag”s value. splitType can take following values −

• splitType=”Stretch:” Splits stretched content. If the section stretches on the current page (if the available space is less than declared height), the region that is added to the original height is allowed to split onto the next page.

• splitType=”Prevent:” Prevent split on first attempt. If the section does not fit on the next page, the split occurs normally, as band split prevention is effective only on the first split attempt.

• splitType=”Immediate:” Split immediately. The band is allowed to split anywhere except above, its topmost element.

Example

To demonstrate each section, let”s write report template (jasper_report_template.jrxml). Save this file to C:toolsjasperreports-5.0.1test directory. In this file, we would be displaying a text in each of the sections (we discussed above). The contents of the file are as given below −

<?xml version = "1.0" encoding = "UTF-8"?>

<jasperReport xmlns = "http://jasperreports.sourceforge.net/jasperreports"
   xmlns:xsi = "http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
   xsi:schemaLocation = "http://jasperreports.sourceforge.net/jasperreports
   http://jasperreports.sourceforge.net/xsd/jasperreport.xsd"
   name = "jasper_report_template" pageWidth = "300" pageHeight = "300" 
   columnWidth = "300" leftMargin = "0" rightMargin = "0" 
   topMargin = "0" bottomMargin = "0" >

   <title>
      <band height = "50">
         
         <textField>
            <reportElement x = "100" y = "16" width = "100" height = "20"/>
            <textElement/>
            
            <textFieldExpression>
               <![CDATA["Title"]]>
            </textFieldExpression>
        
         </textField>
      
      </band>
   </title>
   
   <pageHeader>
      <band height = "40">
         
         <textField>
            <reportElement  mode = "Opaque" x = "100" y = "10" 
               width = "90" height = "20"/>
            
            <textElement>
               <font isBold = "true"/>
            </textElement>
            
            <textFieldExpression>
               <![CDATA["Page Header"]]>
            </textFieldExpression>
         </textField>
      
      </band>
   </pageHeader>
   
   <columnHeader>
      <band height = "40">
            
         <textField>
            <reportElement  x = "100" y = "10" width = "90" height = "20"/>
            
            <textElement>
               <font isItalic = "true"/>
            </textElement>
            
            <textFieldExpression>
               <![CDATA["Column Header"]]>
            </textFieldExpression>
         </textField>
      
      </band>
   </columnHeader>
   
   <detail>
      <band height ="40">
         
         <textField>
            <reportElement mode = "Opaque" x = "100" y = "10" 
               width = "90" height = "20" backcolor = "#99CCFF"/>
            <textElement/>
            
            <textFieldExpression>
               <![CDATA["Report Details"]]>
            </textFieldExpression>
         </textField>
      
      </band>
   </detail>
   
   <columnFooter>
      <band height = "40">
         
         <textField>
            <reportElement  x = "100" y = "10" width = "90" height = "20"/>
            <textElement/>
            
            <textFieldExpression>
               <![CDATA["Column Footer"]]>
            </textFieldExpression>
         </textField>
      
      </band>
   </columnFooter>
   
   <pageFooter>
      <band height = "40">
         
         <textField>
            <reportElement  x = "100" y = "10" width = "90" height = "20"/>
            <textElement/>
            
            <textFieldExpression>
               <![CDATA["Page Footer"]]>
            </textFieldExpression>
         </textField>
      
      </band>
   </pageFooter>
   
   <lastPageFooter>
      <band height = "40">
         
         <textField>
            <reportElement  x = "100" y = "10" width = "90" height = "20"/>
            <textElement/>
            
            <textFieldExpression>
               <![CDATA["Last Page Footer"]]>
            </textFieldExpression>
         </textField>
      
      </band>
   </lastPageFooter>
   
   <summary>
      <band height = "40">
         
         <textField>
            <reportElement  x = "100" y = "10" width = "90" height = "20"/>
            <textElement/>
            
            <textFieldExpression>
               <![CDATA["Summary"]]>
            </textFieldExpression>
         </textField>
      
      </band>
   </summary>
	
</jasperReport>

The java code to fill and generate the report is given below. Let”s save this file JasperReportFill.java to C:toolsjasperreports-5.0.1testsrccomtutorialspoint directory.

package com.tutorialspoint;

import net.sf.jasperreports.engine.JREmptyDataSource;
import net.sf.jasperreports.engine.JRException;
import net.sf.jasperreports.engine.JasperFillManager;

public class JasperReportFill {
   public static void main(String[] args) {
      String sourceFileName = "C://tools/jasperreports-5.0.1/test/" + 
         "jasper_report_template.jasper";

      try {
         JasperFillManager.fillReportToFile(sourceFileName, null,
            new JREmptyDataSource());
      } catch (JRException e) {
         // TODO Auto-generated catch block
         e.printStackTrace();
      }

   }
}

Here, we use an instance of JREmptyDataSource when filling reports to simulate a data source with one record in it, but with all the fields in this single record being null.

Report Generation

We will compile and execute the above file using our regular ANT build process. The contents of the file build.xml (saved under directory C:toolsjasperreports-5.0.1test) are as below.

The import file – baseBuild.xml is picked up from the chapter Environment Setup and should be placed in the same directory as the build.xml.

<?xml version = "1.0" encoding = "UTF-8"?>
<project name = "JasperReportTest" default = "viewFillReport" basedir = ".">
   
   <import file = "baseBuild.xml" />
   <target name = "viewFillReport" depends = "compile,compilereportdesing,run"
      description = "Launches the report viewer to preview 
      the report stored in the .JRprint file.">
      
      <java classname = "net.sf.jasperreports.view.JasperViewer" fork = "true">
         <arg value = "-F${file.name}.JRprint" />
         <classpath refid = "classpath" />
      </java>
		
   </target>
   
   <target name = "compilereportdesing" description = "Compiles the JXML file and
      produces the .jasper file.">
      
      <taskdef name = "jrc"
         classname = "net.sf.jasperreports.ant.JRAntCompileTask">
         <classpath refid = "classpath" />
      </taskdef>
      
      <jrc destdir = ".">
         <src>
            <fileset dir = ".">
               <include name = "*.jrxml" />
            </fileset>
         </src>
         <classpath refid = "classpath" />
      </jrc>
   
   </target>
	
</project>

Next, let”s open command line window and go to the directory where build.xml is placed. Finally, execute the command ant -Dmain-class=com.tutorialspoint.JasperReportFill (viewFullReport is the default target) as follows −

C:toolsjasperreports-5.0.1test>ant -Dmain-class=com.tutorialspoint.JasperReportFill
Buildfile: C:toolsjasperreports-5.0.1testbuild.xml

clean-sample:
   [delete] Deleting directory C:toolsjasperreports-5.0.1testclasses
   [delete] Deleting: C:toolsjasperreports-5.0.1testjasper_report_template.jasper
   [delete] Deleting: C:toolsjasperreports-5.0.1testjasper_report_template.jrprint

compile:
   [mkdir] Created dir: C:toolsjasperreports-5.0.1testclasses
   [javac] C:toolsjasperreports-5.0.1testbaseBuild.xml:28:
   warning: ''includeantruntime'' was not set, defau
   [javac] Compiling 1 source file to C:toolsjasperreports-5.0.1testclasses

compilereportdesing:
   [jrc] Compiling 1 report design files.
   [jrc] log4j:WARN No appenders could be found for logger
   (net.sf.jasperreports.engine.xml.JRXmlDigesterFac
   [jrc] log4j:WARN Please initialize the log4j system properly.
   [jrc] log4j:WARN See http://logging.apache.org/log4j/1.2/faq.html#noconfig for more info.
   [jrc] File : C:toolsjasperreports-5.0.1testjasper_report_template.jrxml ... OK.

run:
   [echo] Runnin class : com.tutorialspoint.JasperReportFill
   [java] log4j:WARN No appenders could be found for logger
   (net.sf.jasperreports.extensions.ExtensionsEnviro
   [java] log4j:WARN Please initialize the log4j system properly.

viewFillReport:
   [java] log4j:WARN No appenders could be found for logger
   (net.sf.jasperreports.extensions.ExtensionsEnviro
   [java] log4j:WARN Please initialize the log4j system properly.

BUILD SUCCESSFUL
Total time: 18 minutes 22 seconds

As a result of above compilation, a JasperViewer window opens up as in the screen below −

Here, we can see in each of the sections a text is printed. It is to be noted that as JRXML contains a <lastPageFooter> element, it will be displayed in the last page of the report instead of the <pageFooter> element being displayed. The <columnHeader> and <columnFooter> elements will only be displayed on the report, if it has more than one column.