Re: BIRT 2.0 Reporting Tool

[Mark Phippard <markp@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

java400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote on 02/15/2006 03:07:25 PM:

>    Has anyone here had success running reports with BIRT 2.0 (Business
>    Intelligence Reporting Tool) in Websphere 6 on the iSeries?
> 
>    I have followed the instructions found here,
>    http://www.eclipse.org/birt/phoenix/deploy/viewerSetup.php , for
>    integrating BIRT reports in a web application. I have successfully 
run
>    reports containing tables but have been unable to run a report 
containing
>    graphs or charts. I simply receive the following error message
> 
>    Exception in:
>    soapenv:Server.userException
>    java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException
> 
>    Any information would be greatly appreciated.

I have not tried BIRT yet but I spent some time a year ago getting another 
report solution working in WebSphere.  The basic problem with all of these 
tools is that in order to generate graphics on the fly they use some core 
Java classes that require AWT.  OS/400 does not have AWT support by 
default. 

WAS 6 uses Java 1.4, and starting with java 1.4 you can set a property 
named java.awt.headless=true.  This is a JVM property so you have to set 
it in the area of WebSphere where you can specify JVM startup properties. 
WebSphere would have to be stopped and restarted to pick up the property.

Once this property is set, the charts *might* work.  I qualify it, because 
there are some things that the code has to do work properly in headless 
AWT.  Most tools are aware of this property now and code their graphics 
routines so that it will work in this environment.

If it does not work, then OS/400 has a different way you can setup the JVM 
so that an AWT environment is available.  It requires running VNC on the 
server and it then uses the VNC server to provide a graphics environment. 

There is documentation on all of this in the IBM docs.  Search for 
java.awt.headless and you should fine stuff.

Mark


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