Integrate Jasper in Rails 3 - ruby-on-rails

Question

I'm trying to integrate a rails 3 app with jasper following this wiki:
http://wiki.rubyonrails.org/rails/pages/HowtoIntegrateJasperReports
But it seems that a lot of information isn't updated so it's been very hard to make it work by myself. I've also read a topic at ruby-forum: http://www.ruby-forum.com/topic/139453
with some details explained but still couldn't make it work.
My first problem is related with the render_to_string method:
When the controller method runs I receive a "Template is missing" error:
this is the method:
def report
#customers = Customer.all
send_doc(render_to_string(:template => report_customers_path, :layout => false), '/pdfs', 'report.jasper', "customers", 'pdf')
end
Although this seems simple I'm not understanding why is this happening. Doesn't render_to_string with layout => false suposed to get me the string result of that action?
I also tried :action instead of :template, but it does the same.
If anybody with some expertise with this integration could help...
Thanks in advance,
André

Answer 1

We actually use jasperreports to create reports, and recently upgraded to Rails 3.0. To create the xml, we use xml.erb templates. Jasper reports runs in a separate glassfish server Here's the general idea:
url = URI.parse(my_url_string)
dataxml = render_to_string(:template => my_template_name).gsub(/\n/, '')
params = {'type' => 'pdf', 'compiledTemplateURI' => my_jasper_file, 'data' => dataxml }
request = Net::HTTP::POST.new(url.request_uri)
request.set_form_data(params)
obj = Net::HTTP.new(url.host, url.port)
obj.read_timeout = my_timeout_setting
response = obj.start { |http| http.request(request) }
case response
when Net::HTTPOK
send_data(response.body, :filename => my_chosen_filename, :type => "application/pdf", :disposition => "inline")
else
raise "failed to generate report"
end

Answer 2

I don't know anything about jasper, but it sounds like you want to do two things: render a PDF template and then send the raw output back w/ a PDF mime type:
pdf_contents = render_to_string(:template => 'users/report')
send_data(pdf_contents, :file_name => 'report.pdf', :type => 'application/pdf')
You're passing in the external URL as the template path, but that's probably wrong if you're getting errors about the template path. Fix the template path first.

Answer 3

Use savon to interact with jaserserver in rails3.
Here is an example:
require 'logger'
require 'savon'
logger = Logger.new(STDOUT)
logger.info "Test jasper via Savon-SOAP"
#client = Savon::Client.new {
wsdl.document = "http://localhost:8080/jasperserver/services/repository?wsdl"
http.auth.basic "jasperadmin", "jasperadmin"
}
logger.info "runReport method"
begin
result = #client.request :run_report do
soap.body = "<requestXmlString>
<![CDATA[
<request operationName='runReport' >
<argument name='RUN_OUTPUT_FORMAT'>PDF</argument>
<resourceDescriptor name='' wsType='' uriString='/reports/samples/AllAccounts' isNew='false'>
<label></label>
</resourceDescriptor>
</request>
]]>
</requestXmlString>"
end
send_data result.http.raw_body, :type => 'application/pdf', :filename => 'report.pdf', :disposition => 'attachment'
rescue Exception => e
logger.error "SOAP Error: #{e}"
end

Answer 4

Try to change the render_to_string() code to this:
#customers.to_xml