[news.eclipse.newcomer] BIRT Report - Run time config files

[rameshp2006@xxxxxxxxx (ramesh)]

Hi,
  We are using BIRT 2.1.2 in our web application and hosting the 
application from tomcat 5.5.23.

During generation of report, BIRT report engine creates run time 
configuration files in WEB-INF/platform/configuration folder.

List of run time files created..
\webapps\datacomparisontool\WEB-INF\platform\configuration
07/26/2007  10:04 AM               688 config.ini
07/27/2007  04:17 AM               320 1185509823515.log
07/27/2007  04:17 AM    <DIR>          org.eclipse.core.runtime
07/27/2007  04:17 AM    <DIR>          org.eclipse.update
07/27/2007  08:14 AM    <DIR>          org.eclipse.osgi

As per our organisations security guidelines, application will not write 
access to the folder WEB-INF and BIRT APIs could not generate the run time 
files in WEB-INF\platform\configuration. 

We are using following code to get the BIRT engine,
=====================================
/**
* This method is used to send the request to BIRT report design which 
will generate report in HTML format
* @param request a variable of HttpServletRequest type
* @param response a variable of HttpServletResponse type
* @param input a variable of  String[] type
* @param reportName a variable of String type 
* @throws ServletException
*/
private void genReport(HttpServletRequest request,
	HttpServletResponse response, String[] input, String reportName)
		throws ServletException,Exception {

	ServletContext sc = request.getSession().getServletContext();
	this.birtReportEngine = getBirtEngine(sc);
	HTMLRenderContext renderContext = new HTMLRenderContext();
	renderContext.setBaseImageURL(request.getContextPath() + "/images");
	renderContext.setImageDirectory(sc.getRealPath("/images"));
	HashMap contextMap = new HashMap();
	contextMap.put(EngineConstants.APPCONTEXT_HTML_RENDER_CONTEXT,renderContext);

	IReportRunnable design;
	try {
		design = birtReportEngine.openReportDesign(sc.getRealPath("/reports")+ 
"\\" + reportName);
		IRunAndRenderTask task = birtReportEngine.createRunAndRenderTask(design);
		task.setAppContext(contextMap);
		HTMLRenderOption options = new HTMLRenderOption();
		IGetParameterDefinitionTask ptask = 
birtReportEngine.createGetParameterDefinitionTask(design);
		try {
			options.setOutputFormat(HTMLRenderOption.OUTPUT_FORMAT_HTML);
			options.setOutputStream(response.getOutputStream());
			task.setRenderOption(options);
			task.run();
			task.close();
			birtReportEngine.shutdown();
		} catch (ClassCastException c) {
			c.printStackTrace();
		}
	} catch (Exception e) {

		e.printStackTrace();
		throw new ServletException(e);
		}
}

/**
* This method is used to initialize the BIRT Report Engine
* @param sc a variable type of ServletContext
* @return a  IReportEngine data type
*/
private IReportEngine getBirtEngine(ServletContext sc) {
	IReportEngine birtEngine = null;
	if (birtEngine == null) {
		EngineConfig config = new EngineConfig();
		config.setEngineHome("");
		IPlatformContext context = new PlatformServletContext(sc);
		config.setPlatformContext(context);

		try {
			Platform.startup(config); -- problematic code
		} catch (BirtException e) {
			e.printStackTrace();
		}

		IReportEngineFactory factory = (IReportEngineFactory) Platform
				.createFactoryObject(IReportEngineFactory.EXTENSION_REPORT_ENGINE_FACTORY);
		birtEngine = factory.createReportEngine(config);

	}
	return birtEngine;
}

}

=====================================

We are having problem in Platform.startup(config). This API is trying to 
create the runtime config files in WEB-INF/platform/configuration folder. 
We need to change the location for creating the run time files. This will 
solve our problem.

Please help on this.

Thanks a lot.