From version 1.2 of Inforama Java Beans/POJOs (Plain Old Java Objects) can be used as data sources. JavaBean properties are accessed using dot notation which means: if an object obj has a method getProperty() then we can refer to the value that this method returns (when invoked on obj) by using obj.property notation. The steps below show how to set up JavaBeans Data Source and define associated Data Sets. All the examples are taken from the JavaBeansSample project which is attached to this wiki entry.

Setting up Java Beans as a data source

Each JavaBeans data source specifies a set of jar files containing POJOs (or rather java classes specifying POJOs) which are to be used in a Inforama project. In order to set up a new data source go to Data->Connection/Data Sources, press the New button, choose the Java Beans as the type of data source that you want to add and finally choose a jar files containing POJOs which you want to use as a "data providers" in your Inforama project. The sample attached project is using samplejavabeans.jar file as its data source. The file contains a definition of the classes:

Account

package org.in4ama.beans;

public class Account {

	private AccountDesc desc1, desc2;
	
	public Account(String desc1, String desc2) {
		this.desc1 = new AccountDesc(desc1);
		this.desc2 = new AccountDesc(desc2);
	}

	public AccountDesc getDesc1() {
		return desc1;
	}
	
	public AccountDesc getDesc2() {
		return desc2;
	}
	
}

AccountDesc

package org.in4ama.beans;

public class AccountDesc {

	private String desc;
	
	public AccountDesc(String desc) {
		this.desc = desc;
	}
			
	public String getDesc() {
		return desc;
	}
		
	
}

User

package org.in4ama.beans;

import java.util.LinkedList;
import java.util.List;

public class User {

	private String firstName, lastName;
	private final List<Account> accounts = new LinkedList<Account>();

	public User(String firstName, String lastName) {
		this.firstName = firstName;
		this.lastName  = lastName;
	}
	
	public String getFristName() {
		return firstName;
	}

	public String getLastName() {
		return lastName;
	}
	
	public List<Account> getAccounts() {
		return accounts;
	}
	
}

UserRepository

package org.in4ama.beans;

import java.util.LinkedList;
import java.util.List;

public class UserRepository {

	private final static List<User> users = buildUsers();
	
	private static List<User> buildUsers() {
		....
	}
	
	public static List<User> getUsers() {
		return users;
	}
	
} 

The samplejavabeans.jar file is located in the resources folder of the project.

Creating Data Sets from a Java Beans Data Source

Data Sets associated with Java Beans Data Sources are defined by any Java expression that "returns" something, it can be either a scalar or a collection. The document1 in the sample project is listing all users thus we need a data set containing that list. The screenshot below shows the Java expression that is used.

data set definition

Since the UserRepository.getUsers() method returns a list containing objects of a User type we have access to the firstName, lastName and accounts (another list) properties when using the allUsers data set.

Sample document

The screenshot below shows a sample document listing all users from the allUsers data set which was defined above. The document (named document1) is included in the attached project.

document using data set derived from the JavaBeans data source

The output document generated from this template looks like shown below.

result PDF document filled with data provided by POJOs