Java Reference
In-Depth Information
under the
lib
subdirectory of the directory created when extracting the ZIP file.
JasperReports uses these required files for XML parsing. Therefore, they are needed
when compiling JRXML files. However, programmatically they are not needed for
filling or displaying reports. JRXML files can be compiled via a custom ANT task
provided by JasperReports. If we choose to compile our JRXML files via this custom
ANT target, these required libraries need to be added to the CLASSPATH variable of
the ANT build file. There are build file examples included in the project file as well as
in this topic's website:
http://www.packtpub.com/jasper_reports/book/
.
Jakarta Commons
Jakarta Commons is a collection of Java libraries developed and distributed by the
Apache Software Foundation
. Jakarta Commons includes libraries and utility classes
that provide commonly used functionality, freeing developers from the task of
re-implementing them. Before implementing a piece of functionality that is frequently
needed, we should make sure there isn't a Jakarta Commons library that implements
it. Jakarta Commons includes libraries for logging, XML parsing, sending and
receiving email, I/O, network utility classes, and many others. For more information,
visit the Jakarta Commons website at
http://jakarta.apache.org/commons/
. The
following list of libraries highlights the fact that JasperReports makes extensive use
of Jakarta Commons.
Jakarta Commons Digester
The
Commons Digester
library includes utility classes used to initialize Java objects
from XML files. JasperReports takes advantage of the Digester component of the
Jakarta Commons repository to implement its XML parsing functionality. Version
1.2.2 of the JasperReports project ZIP file includes version 1.7 of Commons Digester.
The file name is
commons-digester-1.7.jar
and it must be on your CLASSPATH
for your JasperReports application to work correctly.
If you download the bare JasperReports class library, you will need to
download Commons Digester separately from
http://jakarta.apache.org/
commons/digester/
.
Jakarta Commons Collections
Another component of the Jakarta Commons suite is
Commons Collections
. This
component provides the functionality to complement and augment the Java
Collections Framework. JasperReports takes advantage of the Collections
component to implement some of its functionality. Like all other required libraries,
the Commons Collections library can be found under the
lib
subdirectory of the
directory created when extracting the project ZIP file. The JasperReports project file,
