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Birt 3.7 Migration Guide

< To: BIRT Project

BIRT POJO Runtime

BIRT 3.7 features a new POJO based runtime. The new Runtime consists of a set of jars that can simply be added to the classpath of your application. While this affects the Runtime of BIRT the designer will continue to use the same OSGi based approach as previous versions of BIRT. The new Runtime is available for download on the BIRT web site and is structured as illustrated in the following diagram. BIRTPOJOruntime.png

The Runtime contains the ReportEngine which can be used to run and render reports using the Report Engine API (RE API), and the DesignEngine which can be used to create report, library and template designs using the Design Engine API (DE API). The Runtime also contains the Chart Engine which can be used to build and display charts outside of a BIRT report or to manipulate charts within a design using the Chart Engine API (CE API).

The ReportEngine directory also contains a bat file (genReport.bat) or shell script (genReport.sh) to run reports from the command line using the Report Engine API. To use the command line file, extract the ReportEngine directory to a local file location (eg c:\birt3.7). To run a report you must set the environment variable BIRT_HOME first. The shell/bat file uses this to locate the jars.

set BIRT_HOME=c:\birt3.7
cd c:\birt3.7\ReportEngine
genReport samples/Hello_World.rptdesign

This will produce Hello_World.html in the samples directory. Use the following to get more parameter options.

genReport --help runrender
genReport --help run
genReport --help render


In addition, the Runtime contains a Java EE AJAX based viewer that uses the Report Engine API to run and render reports and supports pagination, table of contents, and exporting to all supported formats. This viewer is available as a WAR (BIRT.war) or in exploded format (WebViewerExample). Many of the features of the viewer can be customized by modifying JSP fragments and JavaScript files located in the webcontent directory. See below for deployment instructions for the new Viewer.


BIRT POJO Viewer Deployment

The Viewer can be deployed as a standard Java EE based web application. Specific instruction are provided below.

BIRT POJO Viewer Websphere Deployment
BIRT POJO Viewer JBOSS Deployment
BIRT POJO Viewer Tomcat Deployment


BIRT 3.7 API Changes

If you have existing code (RE, DE or CE API) that you plan on migrating to BIRT 3.7, no changes should be required, but it is advised to remove the setBirtHome method from your EngineConfig instance. Add all jars in the ReportEngine/lib directory to your classpath or to your buildpath if you are using Eclipse to build your Java application.

BIRT RE API code
config = new EngineConfig( ); 
config.setBIRTHome("pathtoruntime");
Should be changed to:
config = new EngineConfig( ); 
BIRT DE API code
config = new DeisgnConfig( );
config.setBIRTHome("pathtoruntime");
Should be changed to:
config = new DesignConfig( );
If you are using the Chart Engine API
PlatformConfig pf = new PlatformConfig();
pf.setBIRTHome("pathtoruntime");
Should be changed to:
PlatformConfig pf = new PlatformConfig();

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