CREATING JASPER REPORTS WITH DYNAMIC IMAGES

This is a tutorial on how to embed images stored in a database (javaDB, MySQL,etc) into a jasper repors at runtime. This tutorial uses EJBs for creating an object for the table and its fields from the database. I’m also using Collection (List) of objects as the data source for the jasper reports. It is assumed the reader knows how to create reports using jasper reports.

The image field in the database table can be of data type blob, medium blob or long blob. In our entity class for the table, the datatype of the image (photo) field will be of the type byte [].Note that the image that will be sent to the report will be a type of java.awt.image, so therefore we create one additional field of type image in our class. In your code, create a method that converts a blob to image. (This can easily be done using image icon, as it accept blob and you can get image from it as well)

We will be using ireport 3.0, Netbeans 6.5 , Sun Application Server( because of me using session beans, but will not be necessary when creating desktop applications) as the development environment. Make sure to add the jasper report libraries to your projects.

Design your report by creating the necessary fields in the ireport.  Make sure the names of the field are the same as they appear in the entity class (the datasource) including capitalization as shown below

In creating the fields, the image (photo) field should be of the type Object. After creating the image field, insert an image into your report from the ireport toolbar.  Then bind the image to the image (photo) field then you are done with the design of your report.

Save your report. Note that the file type of your report can be .jrxml or .jasper. I’m using the .jasper as it removes the overhead of compiling it in your code in case it is .jrxml

Then you go to netbeans to do some small coding.

Write the code below under an actionevent

generateReports("StudentDetail", reportFactory.returnStudentsBySchool(s.getSchID()), param);

the “studentdetail” is the name of the report file, “param” is a map object which is used  incase you are filling part of your report with parameters (usually user imput). Parameters are also created the same way as creating fields but under the parameters section

Exxample of creating a map object in java

Map<String, Object> param = new HashMap<String, Object>();

param.put("school", “Abakrampa”); //school is the name of the parameter as it in the report inteface

“returnStudentsBySchool(s.getSchID())” is a method that returns a collection of the object (our datasource, and this is the detail

public static Collection returnStudentsBySchool(int schid) {

educationSSSSessionRemote session = lookupnewEducateFacadeBean();//session beans

List data = null;

List<StudentDetail> results = null;

data = session.findStudentBySchool(schid);// returns the students object with blob

ListIterator<StudentDetail> lstmb = data.listIterator();

results = new ArrayList<StudentDetail>();

// converting the byte[] to image type for all the student objects

ImageIcon n;

while (lstmb.hasNext()) {

StudentDetail s = lstmb.next();

if (s.getPicture() != null) {

n = new ImageIcon((byte[]) s.getPicture());

} else {

n = new ImageIcon();

}

s.setPhoto(n.getImage(),

results.add(s);

}

return results;

}

The generate report method

private void generateReports(String name, Collection data, Map param) {

try {

URL urlfilename = null;

String oSource = "reports/" + name;

String rSource = "reports/" + name + ".jasper";

urlfilename = getClass().getResource(rSource);

String reportfile = null;

if (urlfilename != null) {

reportfile = urlfilename.getPath();

} else {

return;

}

JRBeanCollectionDataSource jrbc = new JRBeanCollectionDataSource(data);

JasperPrint jasperPrint = JasperFillManager.fillReport(reportfile, param, jrbc);

JasperViewer.viewReport(jasperPrint, false);//"

// when the false is absent on closing the report it closes your java apllication

} catch (Exception e) {

e.printStackTrace();

System.out.println("reports Error  " + e.toString());

}   }

Below is a sample report when the app is run