What Is a Report?

A report is comprised of a report template and a dataset. Reports in JReport can be classified into two categories:

Dynamic - The layout and data to be included is defined at report design time but can also be modified at runtime.
Ad Hoc - Reports that are built on business views at runtime by end users.

Report template

A report template contains static text and graphics as well as placeholders for data.

When a report is in the runtime environment, it connects to the data source associated with the report, executes the query, and applies the fetched data to the template thereby creating a report result file:

Report Template

Therefore, each report result represents a unique data set; the one that exists at the time the query is run.

Data sources and datasets

Reports pull data from data sources via queries or business views, and then expose the results to the report designer. JReport supports the following types of data sources:

Relational databases through JDBC connections
Data warehouses
Java objects
XML data
Metadata layers
User-defined data sources
Hierarchical data sources
Web service data sources
MongoDB data sources

A dataset is the data that the JReport Server returns at runtime from a JReport query or business view.

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