Concepts of JasperReports

This chapter illustrates JasperReports' base concepts for a better understanding of how Jaspersoft Studio works.

The JasperReports API, the XML syntax for report definition, and details for using the library in your own programs are documented in the JasperReports Library Ultimate Guide. This guide, along with other information and examples, is directly available on the Jaspersoft community site at http://community.jaspersoft.com.

JasperReports is published under the LGPL license, which is a less restrictive GPL license. JasperReports can be freely used on commercial programs without buying expensive software licenses and without remaining trapped in the complicated net of open source licenses. This is important when reports created with Jaspersoft Studio are used in a commercial product; in fact, programs only need the JasperReports library to produce prints, which work something like runtime executables.

This chapter contains the following sections:

JRXML Sources and Jasper Files
Data Sources and Print Formats
Project Folder Types and Report Execution Contexts
Using JasperReports Extensions in Jaspersoft Studio
A Simple Program