You can use the capabilities of your IBM® Rational® product
in conjunction with those of Business Intelligence and Reporting Tools
(BIRT) to fine-tune data sources, data sets, and report designs for
UML and EMF models. The following tips provide helpful information
for designing model reports, as well as links to sites where you can
find additional information.
- Working through the report design process with a sample model
- For a step-by-step demonstration of how to design a report, see
the tutorial named "Create a BIRT report design for a UML model."
The tutorial shows how to create the report design and add commonly
used model elements to the report.
- Adding common types of model information to reports
- To include information in a report, you must add the corresponding
element to the report design. For certain types of information that
are commonly included in reports, such as model element documentation,
you must follow special procedures. For more information, see the
topic "Adding common types of model information to reports."
- Finding the available custom XPath functions
- For the XPath functions that IBM Rational provides, see the
topic "Additional XPath functions for EMF and UML data sets." When
these functions are not sufficient to build the data set that you
need, you can write your own XPath functions and use the extension
point named org.eclipse.jet.xpathFunctions to register
them. For information, see the topic "Writing custom XPath functions."
- See also the context help for the Column Mapping page of the Data
Set wizard, where you specify XPath functions.
- Troubleshooting XPath expression
- You might encounter XPath expressions that appear valid in the
Data Set dialog box, but that do not yield any results when you preview
them.
- The Data Set dialog box only validates XPath syntax. It does not
catch errors such as a reference to navigation paths that do not exist
in the model.
- Joining data sets
- If you join data sets and need a key to uniquely identify model
objects, the best key is the URI of the model object, because it is
unique across resources. The getURI() XPath function
returns the URI of any object in the model. The resolveURI() function
resolves URIs.
- For example, if you have a Class data set that has a URI columnn
(getURI(.)) and an Operation data set that has a containerURI column
(getURI(..)), you can join the two data sets using the URI and containerURI.
- For additional information, see the topic "How to join data sets"
in the Field Guide to BIRT.
- Preventing prompts to load unavailable fonts when reports are
generated
- If report users receive prompts to load unavailable fonts when
they generate a report, modify the report design by setting the font
to "automatic" or by specifying a font in the Properties view for
each element. Do not use a default font such as default serif.
- For example, if a report requires Japanese text, the use of default
serif in the report design can result in an unexpected prompt to download
a Chinese language font.
- Selecting the best instance models for designing a report
- When you design a report, make sure that the instance models that
you use at design time are representative of your data, yet small
enough to not impede the speed of your report design tasks. The models
might be reloaded multiple times throughout the design stage, so using
smaller models saves time.
- Alternate approaches for starting report design
- In addition to starting a report design using the Report Explorer
window, you can use the BIRT Report wizard.
- To open the Report Explorer window, click , expand Reporting, and double-click Report
Explorer.
- To open the BIRT New Report wizard, click , expand Business
Intelligence Reporting Tools, and double-click Report.
- Use the Report Explorer window if you are basing your report on
an existing report design.
- Deploying a BIRT report as a plug-in
- To deploy a BIRT report as a plug-in, create a plug-in that contains
the report and that extends the extension point named com.ibm.ccl.erf.birt.reports in
the com.ibm.ccl.erf.birt plug-in.
- To create the plug-in: start a new plug-in project and ensure
that the activator is in the /src folder. Add the RPTDESIGN file that
contains the report to the project, and set the build configuration
for the project to include the report in the output. Ensure that the
build configuration includes the bin directory in the binary build.
Add com.ibm.ccl.erf.birt as a dependency, and
set com.ibm.ccl.erf.birt.reports as an extension
point for the plug-in. To the extension point, add a category for
the report, and then add the report itself to the category. For the
URL for the report, use a platform plug-in path: platform:/plugin/<plug-in
name>/<path to RPTDESIGN file>.
- To deploy the plug-in, export the plug-in, copy the output JAR
file to the SDP\plugins folder of your IBM Rational product installation directory,
and restart the product.
Note: Some information, such as links to Eclipse
documentation or to developer guides, is available only from the help
topics that are installed with the product.