/* * JasperReports - Free Java Reporting Library. * Copyright (C) 2001 - 2013 Jaspersoft Corporation. All rights reserved. * http://www.jaspersoft.com * * Unless you have purchased a commercial license agreement from Jaspersoft, * the following license terms apply: * * This program is part of JasperReports. * * JasperReports is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify * it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by * the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or * (at your option) any later version. * * JasperReports is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the * GNU Lesser General Public License for more details. * * You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public License * along with JasperReports. If not, see . */ /** * Provides Ant task classes for batch-processing report files. *
*

Ant Tasks

* When the number of different report files that one has to deal with in a project is * significant, there is a need for automating repeating or re-occurring tasks that are to be * performed on those files. *
* From a design point of view, the most notable operation that needs to be performed on * report source files after they are finished and ready to be deployed is the report * compilation. Sometimes reports need to be decompiled in order to reproduce their * corresponding source files and perform additional design work on them, or when the * same modification needs to be performed identically on all reports. *
* For these re-occurring tasks, JasperReports provides built-in ready-to-use Ant task * definitions, based on the {@link net.sf.jasperreports.ant.JRBaseAntTask JRBaseAntTask} class. *
*

Ant Task for Compiling Reports

* Since report template compilation is more like a design-time job than a runtime one, a * custom Ant task has been provided with the library to simplify application development. *
* This Ant task is implemented by the {@link net.sf.jasperreports.ant.JRAntCompileTask JRAntCompileTask} class. Its syntax and behavior are * very similar to the built-in <javac> Ant task. *
* The report template compilation task can be declared like this, in a project's build.xml * file: * 
* <taskdef name="jrc" 
* classname="net.sf.jasperreports.ant.JRAntCompileTask"> 
*   <classpath> 
*     <fileset dir="./lib"> 
*       <include name="** /*.jar"/> 
*     </fileset> 
*   </classpath> 
* </taskdef> 
*
* In the preceding example, the lib folder should contain the jasperreports-x.x.x.jar file * along with its other required libraries. *
* You can then use this user-defined Ant task to compile multiple JRXML report template * files in a single operation by specifying the root directory that contains those files or by * selecting them using file patterns. *
*

Attributes of the Report Compilation Task

* Following is the list of attributes that can be used inside the Ant report compilation task * to specify the source files, the destination directory, and other configuration properties: * * The report template compilation task supports nested <src> and <classpath> * elements, just like the Ant <javac> built-in task. *
*

Ant Task for Decompiling Reports

* Sometimes it happens that report templates are to be found only in their compiled form. *
* The source report template files might have been lost and we might have only the * compiled report template on which we need to make some modifications. *
* In such cases, the Ant task for decompiling report template files that JasperReports * provides becomes very handy. It is implemented by the {@link net.sf.jasperreports.ant.JRAntDecompileTask JRAntDecompileTask} class and its declaration inside a * build.xml file should be as follows: * 
 
* <taskdef name="jrdc" 
* classname="net.sf.jasperreports.ant.JRAntDecompileTask"> 
*   <classpath refid="classpath"/> 
* </taskdef>
*
* In the above example, the classpath should contain the jasperreports-x.x.x.jar file along with its other required * libraries. *
* This task works similarly to the report compilation task, but it does the reverse operation. * The files to be decompiled can be specified using the srcdir attribute for their root * folder or, for more sophisticated file match patterns, a nested <src> tag. The output * folder for the generated files is specified using the destdir attribute. *
*

Ant Task for Updating Reports

* Although JasperReports always guarantees backward compatibility of report templates * when upgrading to a newer version, sometimes tags or attributes in JRXML are * deprecated and replaced with newer ones that offer enhanced capabilities. So while the * deprecated attributes and tags still work, it is always advisable to use the latest syntax * and thus get rid of the deprecation warnings. *
* Upgrading a report template to the latest JasperReports syntax is very easy; all that needs * to be done is to load the report and save it again using the API's utility classes, such as * the {@link net.sf.jasperreports.engine.xml.JRXmlLoader JRXmlLoader} or {@link net.sf.jasperreports.engine.util.JRLoader JRLoader} * and the {@link net.sf.jasperreports.engine.xml.JRXmlWriter JRXmlWriter}. *
* This operation can be automated for any number of files using the Ant report update task * provided by the JasperReports library in the * {@link net.sf.jasperreports.ant.JRAntUpdateTask JRAntUpdateTask} class, which should have the * following definition in a build.xml file: * 
* <taskdef name="jru" 
* classname="net.sf.jasperreports.ant.JRAntUpdateTask"> 
*   <classpath refid="classpath"/> 
* </taskdef>
*
* This task is useful also in situations where the same modification needs to be applied on * a number of different report files. The required modifications can be performed using the * JasperReport API after the report design object has been loaded but before it is saved * again. *
*

Related documentation:

* * */ package net.sf.jasperreports.ant;