JasperReports import tag

last modified February 12, 2024

In this article we show how use the import tag in JasperReports template.

JasperReports is an open-source reporting library. It can create reports in various formats including PDF, HTML, XLS, or CSV. JasperReports creates page-oriented, ready-to-print documents.

The import tag is used to import Java classes into the report. It eliminates the need to specify full class names in the report expressions.

<import value="java.time.LocalDateTime"/>

This code imports the LocalDateTime class into the report. We can use it now without the fully qualified name. The class name is specified in the value attribute.

Example

The example uses the import statement.

package com.zetcode

@Grab(group='net.sf.jasperreports', module='jasperreports', version='6.21.0')
@Grab(group='com.github.librepdf', module='openpdf', version='1.3.39')

import net.sf.jasperreports.engine.JasperCompileManager
import net.sf.jasperreports.engine.JasperFillManager
import net.sf.jasperreports.engine.JasperExportManager
import net.sf.jasperreports.engine.JREmptyDataSource

def xmlFile = 'report.xml'
def jrReport = JasperCompileManager.compileReport(xmlFile)

def params = [:]
def jrPrint = JasperFillManager.fillReport(jrReport, params, new JREmptyDataSource())

JasperExportManager.exportReportToPdfFile(jrPrint, 'report.pdf')

The Groovy code compiles, fills, and exports the report.

<?xml version = "1.0" encoding = "UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE jasperReport PUBLIC "//JasperReports//DTD Report Design//EN"
        "http://jasperreports.sourceforge.net/dtds/jasperreport.dtd">

<jasperReport xmlns = "http://jasperreports.sourceforge.net/jasperreports"
              xmlns:xsi = "http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
              xsi:schemaLocation = "http://jasperreports.sourceforge.net/jasperreports
                                    http://jasperreports.sourceforge.net/xsd/jasperreport.xsd"
              name="report" topMargin="20" bottomMargin="20">

    <import value="java.time.LocalDateTime"/>

    <detail>
        <band height="70">

            <textField>
                <reportElement x="5" y="5" width="190" height="15"/>
                <textFieldExpression>
                    <![CDATA[LocalDateTime.now()]]>
                </textFieldExpression>
            </textField>

            <textField>
                <reportElement x="5" y="45" width="190" height="15"/>
                <textFieldExpression>
                    <![CDATA[java.time.Instant.now()]]>
                </textFieldExpression>
            </textField>
                
        </band>
    </detail>

</jasperReport>

In the report, we use two classes: LocalDateTime and Instant. The first one is imported and can be used without the package name. The second one must be used with fully qualified name.

<import value="java.time.LocalDateTime"/>

We import the LocalDateTime into the report.

<textFieldExpression>
    <![CDATA[LocalDateTime.now()]]>
</textFieldExpression>

In the textFieldExpression, we call the LocalDateTime.now method.

<textFieldExpression>
    <![CDATA[java.time.Instant.now()]]>
</textFieldExpression>

Here, we use the full name of the Instant class: java.time.Instant.

In this article we have shown how to import Java classes into report expressions to simplify them.

Author

My name is Jan Bodnar and I am a passionate programmer with many years of programming experience. I have been writing programming articles since 2007. So far, I have written over 1400 articles and 8 e-books. I have over eight years of experience in teaching programming.

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