Re: PDF Performance

[Pete Helgren <Pete@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Sorry, I didn't respond to the second part of your message.

"I am curious to know how it would handle a report that had many 
hundreds of detail lines along with header type data."

Remember for Jasper and BIRT I am only *calling* the report.  The report 
is populated by the Jasper or Birt engine, not by RRE.  The data query 
and formatting is all handled by the report engines in Java, not by 
RRE.  So, RRE just wraps the entire engine for Jasper and Birt.

The iText stuff is more like traditional I/O.  Actually, the iText 
wrapper is like the POI stuff that Scott did for HSSFR.  Read a record 
in SQL and then write to the iText API with the data.

HTH,

Pete


On 5/12/2010 11:46 AM, Aaron Bartell wrote:
> I think where I got lost in your presentation is how you actually pass
> parms from RPG to the report.  Here is the sample RPG code:
>
> gen = new_RREGenerator();
>
> lReportName = new_String(peReportName);
> lReportOut = new_String(peReportOut);
> lOutFormat = new_String(%trim(peOutFormat));
> lEngine = new_String(peEngine);
> success =
>    RREGenerator_iPrintCompiledReport(
>      gen:
>      lReportName:
>      lReportOut:
>      peRepParam:
>      lOutFormat:
>      lEngine);
>
> Where is peRepParam occupied?  I am curious to know how it would
> handle a report that had many hundreds of detail lines along with
> header type data.
>
> The way I approach this is to have two generic tables - one for header
> information and one for detail level information.  Then I pass the
> GUID key of those DB records to the Java process and have it process
> from there.  Then I don't have to store all of that business data in
> memory.  Obviously my approach has MANY more DB I/O calls, which could
> degrade performance, but it seems to work well for me on the RPG Chart
> Engine project.
>
> Aaron Bartell
> http://mowyourlawn.com
> http://mowyourlawn.com/blog/
>
>
> On Wed, May 12, 2010 at 11:33 AM, Pete Helgren<Pete@xxxxxxxxxx>  wrote:
>    
> > The report design is done with iReport or the BIRT Report designer and
> > you can add whatever parameters to the report that you need for each
> > iteration.  What RRE does is pass parameters to the report (if needed)
> > and then run the report for you, outputting to the IFS or emailing the
> > report.  The API is generic so you just pass it the report file and the
> > output location (or email parameters if that is what you need) and it
> > runs and delivers the report.  So, no, there isn't any additional Java
> > programming needed for each report.
> >
> > The idea is that if you had a "stock" report, like an invoice, that you
> > just needed to pass a customer ID and date to, you could have a green
> > screen or web front end that prompted for the parameters and then it ran
> > the report.  So, depending upon the report that you have designed, you
> > pass the API the parameters for the report, the file location of the
> > report template and the output options and RRE takes care of running and
> > delivery.  The assumption is that the report has already been designed
> > and just needs to be run.
> >
> > The iText stuff is a bit more involved because you are programmatically
> > creating the report on the fly.  You pass the API the report title and
> > heading, you pass the column headings you want, and then iteratively
> > write the data to the report columns. It is roughly analogous to using
> > an internally defined report format except you are writing to PDF rather
> > than spool file.
> >
> > Pete
> >
> >
> > On 5/12/2010 10:17 AM, Aaron Bartell wrote:
> >      
> > > I have been meaning to dive into your RPG Report Engine for awhile and I
> > > just now skimmed your presentation.  Does each new report require Java
> > > coding to be done?  I wasn't quite sure on that.
> > >
> > > Aaron Bartell
> > > http://mowyourlawn.com
> > > http://mowyourlawn.com/blog/
> > >
> > >
> > > On Wed, May 12, 2010 at 11:06 AM, Pete Helgren<Pete@xxxxxxxxxx>    wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > >        
> > > > FWIW I presented a session at the recent Orlando Common Conference on
> > > > "Open Source Report Writing Tools for IBM i".  You can find the
> > > > presentation here:
> > > >
> > > > http://www.opensource4i.com/Open_Source_Report_Writing_Tools_for_IBM_i%20-_Orlando_2010.pdf
> > > >
> > > > I also finished up some additional work on the RPG Report Engine which
> > > > now has an RPG wrapper for iText (rudimentary) and can run reports from
> > > > RPG created for Jasper or BIRT.  The BIRT addition took the zip file
> > > > from about 10mb to 150mb (!) and I haven't had time to strip out jars
> > > > and plugins that aren't relevant to the BIRT report features that the
> > > > Report Engine supports but it is all open source and the complete (and
> > > > large) zip file can be found here:
> > > > http://www.opensource4i.com/downloads/2008042811495836/rrepackage.zip
> > > > Even with my new Comcast service it'll probably take a while to download.
> > > >
> > > > RRE still suffers from not having a "server" piece in place that handles
> > > > the problem of JVM warm up.  A report "server" is the next thing that
> > > > will be added but you might find the iText stuff useful for generating
> > > > PDF directly from RPG.
> > > >
> > > > Pete
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >          
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