Study On A User-defined Web Report Model Based On XML

With the development and popularization of Internet/Intranet technology, web-based information system becomes more and more important. Web reports design is a key technique in the information system development. Considering the limitations of classical reports design module in software explantation, extendibility and maintenance, it is difficult to satisfy the requirements of web reports implementation in web service applications. User-defined reports separate report style from data and provides user the abilities of custom defining to generate dynamic reports. Consequently it attracts much attention in data report tool research.According to the actual requirements of data reports design, XML is utilized to implement user-defined web reports. Since XML is a structured, extensible and self-defined language, it is easy to describe reports style and data separately. Referred to the MVC (model-view-control) module in software engineering, a user-defined web report model based on Java/XML is proposed in this thesis. The software architecture of the model is divided into three levels: representation layer, application layer and data logic layer. They correspond to different services in web reports design. The model wraps user-defined reports parameters and style parameters into separated XML files, which are apt to be analyzed, evaluated and transferred.The thesis also introduces the software implementation of the custom report model using JasperReports. JasperReports is a well known open-source report-generating tool, written in pure Java language. It has complete report functions, such as style defining and data filling etc.. The work processes of JasperReports and reports designs using XML DTD are described in detail. JasperReports provides an open and powerful report engine to the user-defined report model.