[news.eclipse.birt] BirtException when using Report Engine API

[teratorn@xxxxxxxxx (Eric P. Mangold)]

Hello,

I'm trying to run a simple report which references a single XML data 
source.

When I call run() on the RunAndRenderTask the program dies with exit code 
1.

Running under Eclipse debugger I am told that a BirtException was raised.

The stack trace is useless, because it points to the closing brace, "}",
of a try/finally block which does some cleanup in run()... this seems to be
hiding the true source of the Exception, which I suspect is somewhere in
doRun().

I've placed my source code, .rptdesign file and xml data file on the web, 
here:

http://teratorn.org/code/birt-runner/

The code is simple and straightforward.. and I've commented the problem 
areas.

In order to debug the source of this exception I have attempted to get 
BIRT running from source code, but I've failed *miserably* at doing this.

The online docs for building BIRT from CVS are far out of date, and I've 
tried everything I can think of make it work... but I've never gotten less 
than 2,000 build errors.

So, help telling me what is wrong with my usage of the BIRT Report Engine 
API, AND, help telling me how to build BIRT from source would be greatly 
appreciated!

Thanks in advance,
Eric P. Mangold