I have a report, created with iReport, that has 2 parameters: <parameter name="startDate" class="java.util.Date"> <parameterDescription><![CDATA[start date of the report period.]]></parameterDescription> <defaultValueExpression><![CDATA[new Date()]]></defaultValueExpression> </parameter> <parameter name="endDate" class="java.util.Date"> <parameterDescription><![CDATA[End date report period.]]></parameterDescription> <defaultValueExpression><![CDATA[$P{startDate}]]></defaultValueExpression> </parameter> Question how to get the evaluated value of this parameter in Java? I know that with: report = ((JasperReport) JRLoader.loadObject(new File(jasperFileName))); defaultValue = report.getParameters().getDefaultValueExpression().getText(); I get the default value of the parameter, but then I get "new Date()" in stead of 5 Juli 2012 (in whatever format). Also I get $P{startDate} as a string instead of the value of this parameter, in this case also 5 Juli 2012. Please drop a few Java code lines how to solve this?