One of the main goals of JasperReports Server is to expose a set of reusable application programming interfaces (APIs) that are easy to understand, extend, and customize. This facilitates adapting JasperReports Server to the unique requirements of different deployments.

JasperReports Server provides two types of APIs. The client APIs are used to create other applications that call functionality on the server, and the server APIs are used to customize and extend the server itself.

Using the client APIs, you can embed BI functionality into your own application. The client APIs let you access the server, browse its repository, set input controls, and run reports. These APIs depend on an instance of the JasperReports Server that is already configured and running. The APIs have different uses depending on what functionality you need and which protocol you wish to use.

The client APIs are described in the following sections:

The server APIs are the public interfaces and classes that can be used to extend or customize the behavior of the server itself. Using the server APIs, you can write classes that change the behavior or the user interface of the server, or both. Depending on which behavior you want to extend or customize, you can either integrate your code through the Spring framework and redeploy the server, or you may need to work with the source code distribution and recompile the whole server.

The server APIs are described in the following sections: