Question

Short question:

I’ve a group that could change grouping condition in runtime (see details in long question below). Could I show in the group header/footer current value of the group (e.g. group by branch – show branch name, group by client – client name etc.)?

Long question:

I would like to allow my users to change grouping conditions on the fly. I could relatively easy achieve this in two ways:

1. Via BIRT design time API (pass to group appropriate row/dataset column value).

2. Via report parameters. Pass dataset column name as param value and in group condition use it like

   eval(params[“groupColumnName”].value)

My problem is that I must show value of current group in group header (and nice to repeat it in the group footer too).

I have no idea how to accomplish that for option 1. (design time API).

For option 2. I could repeat Java script from 2. in group header/footer, but it’s not what I would like to achieve. I don’t wish to repeat that cumbersome java script 2-3 times. Could I somehow define that value at group level (something like named query for the group) and later reuse it in group condition, header and footer?

Possible BIRT allows by group name show current value of grouping?

Any thoughts are welcome.

Answer 1

What I did – change group header/footer via API for DataItem and TextItem.

Just in case if somebody would like to now my workaround:

    private static void processRowHandle(SlotHandle pSlotHandle, ReportGroup pGroupInfo) throws SemanticException {
    if (pSlotHandle == null) return;
    for(Object obj : pSlotHandle.getContents()){
        if (obj instanceof RowHandle){
            SlotHandle cells = ((RowHandle)obj).getCells();
            if (cells == null) continue;
            for(Object item : cells.getContents()){
                if (item instanceof CellHandle){
                    SlotHandle content = ((CellHandle)item).getContent();
                    if (content == null) continue;
                    for(Object cell : content.getContents()){
                        if (cell instanceof DesignElementHandle) processGroupLabels((DesignElementHandle) cell, pGroupInfo);
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

private static void processGroupLabels(DesignElementHandle pElementHandle, ReportGroup pGroupInfo) throws SemanticException {
    if (pElementHandle instanceof DataItemHandle){
        DataItemHandle dataItemHandle = (DataItemHandle)pElementHandle;
        if (pGroupInfo.getOldBindingName().equals(dataItemHandle.getResultSetColumn())){
            dataItemHandle.setResultSetColumn(pGroupInfo.getNewColumn().getBindingNameText());
        }
    }
    if (pElementHandle instanceof TextItemHandle){
        String newColumnBindingText = ExpressionUtil.createRowExpression(pGroupInfo.getNewColumn().getBindingNameText());
        String content = ((TextItemHandle)pElementHandle).getContent().replace(pGroupInfo.getOriginalExpression(), newColumnBindingText);
        ((TextItemHandle)pElementHandle).setContent(content);
    }
}