Report Parameter serves
as both an input mechanism and a variable for BIRT reports. Let's say you have a
report that returns the information about an Employee, such as their first name, last
name, department, and a history of performance reviews used in an HR system.
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The report would need some way to know about what Employee you wanted
information. A Report Parameter would provide that mechanism. The report
developer would create a Report Parameter to get the Employee ID from the user,
and would pass that Employee ID to the Data Set to request the relevant information.
Report Parameters can also be used as a means to allow the user to control the logic
and layout of BIRT reports.
New to BIRT 2.2 is Cubes. We will be discussing Cubes a little later in the book. To
keep you heads up, a Cube is a way of grouping data in a way that allows report
consumers to "cut" and "slice" data in a 3D sort of way.
The Data Source
As mentioned earlier, the Data Source is your conduit to your data. Data Sources are
the developers' way to specify where data is located, how to get access to that data,
and provide a mechanism to retrieve that data from a data location. Out of the box,
BIRT provides six different Data Source types:
The Classic Cars Sample Database
DTP XML Data Source
Flat File Data Source
Scripted Data Source
JDBC Driver
Web Services Data Source
We have already seen the Classic Cars Sample Database with the Employee
Example, in Chapter 3.
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