Sorting subreport fields using multiple references to the same datasource

[m_smith7895]

Hi,
Using iReports 5.1.0 I've been trying to figure out how to use subreports to sort the data within the following XML datasource:

<PAGE>
    <DATA>
        <INVENTORY>
            <ITEM>
                <ITEM_NAME>FOO</ITEM_NAME>
                <ITEM_QTY>1</ITEM_QTY>
                <ITEM_TOTAL>$320</ITEM_TOTAL>
                <ORDER>
                    <ORD>1</ORD>
                </ORDER>
            </ITEM>
            <ITEM>
                <ITEM_NAME>BAR</ITEM_NAME>
                <ITEM_QTY>1</ITEM_QTY>
                <ITEM_TOTAL>$400</ITEM_TOTAL>
                <ORDER>
                    <ORD>4</ORD>
                </ORDER>
            </ITEM>
            <ITEM>
                <ITEM_NAME>CAN</ITEM_NAME>
                <ITEM_QTY>1</ITEM_QTY>
                <ITEM_TOTAL>$800</ITEM_TOTAL>
                <ORDER>
                    <ORD>3</ORD>
                </ORDER>
            </ITEM>
        </INVENTORY>
        <EMP>
            <ITEM>
                <ITEM_NAME>PAR</ITEM_NAME>
                <ITEM_QTY>1</ITEM_QTY>
                <ITEM_TOTAL>$3.00</ITEM_TOTAL>
                <UNIT_PRICE>$3.00</UNIT_PRICE>
                <ORDER>
                    <ORD>2</ORD>
                </ORDER>
            </ITEM>
        </EMP>
    </DATA>
</PAGE>

The idea is to use the fields INVENTORY/ITEM/ORDER/ORD and EMP/ITEM/ORDER/ORD to sort  so that the order they are printed by ITEM_NAME is:
    FOO (INVENTORY, ORD=1)
    PAR (EMP, ORD=2)
    CAN (INVENTORY, ORD=3)
    BAR (INVENTORY, ORD=4)
Which corresponds to the order designated by the ORDER/ORD fields that exist within both INVENTORY and EMP ITEMs.

So my question is, is there a way to read all ORD values within the XML and display the values of the surrounding ITEM fields(irrespective of whether it is an INVENTORY or EMP ITEM) line by line without editing the XML eg.
    NAME    QTY        TOTAL
    FOO        1        $320
    PAR        1        $3.00
    CAN        1        $800
    BAR        1        $400
    
Currently they are displaying sequentially in the order they appear within the XML using 2 subreports, one referencing INVENTORY and another referencing EMP.

[lucianc]

You can use something like /PAGE/DATA/*/ITEM as XPath query, and then map a field to ORDER/ORD and use it as sort field:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><jasperReport xmlns="http://jasperreports.sourceforge.net/jasperreports" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://jasperreports.sourceforge.net/jasperreports http://jasperreports.sourceforge.net/xsd/jasperreport.xsd" name="xml_data" pageWidth="995" pageHeight="842" columnWidth="555" leftMargin="20" rightMargin="20" topMargin="20" bottomMargin="20"><queryString language="XPath">/PAGE/DATA/*/ITEM</queryString><field name="ITEM_NAME">  <fieldDescription>ITEM_NAME</fieldDescription></field><field name="ORD" class="java.lang.Integer">  <fieldDescription>ORDER/ORD</fieldDescription></field><sortField name="ORD"/><detail>  <band height="20">   <textField>    <reportElement width="200" y="0" x="0" height="20"/>    <textFieldExpression>$F{ITEM_NAME} + " " + $F{ORD}</textFieldExpression>   </textField>  </band></detail></jasperReport>[/code]

Regards,

Lucian