Report helper JSP files
Report JSP files, which coordinate with the reporting framework, provide input and output views for reports.
Each report has an input view and an output view. The task or purpose of all input JSP files is the same. They share the same look and feel; they request different input criteria yet from a shared input widget pool. On the other hand, output views have common structure and formats. Based on the nature of reports, all reusable parts of report JSP files are built as sharable components.
An input view JSP file is composed from a set of criteria items, depending on report specification. Since criteria items may appear on input pages of different reports, each criteria item is built as a reusable component. Applying this strategy to input view JSP page design achieves the following:
- Easy to create a new report input view.
- All report input views have a consistent look and feel.
- Simplified validation, load, and save functions required by the Tools Framework, because these functions are built in to each components.
The output view JSP file can also contain JSP helper files. The JSP helper files provide all necessary formatting and converting based on data type and language preference. Data types for each column are specified in a user-defined section of a report definition XML. The coordination of helpers and XML definition makes output view creation simple while supporting sophisticated output formats.
The available helper JSP files are described in Helper JSP files provided for WebSphere Commerce Accelerator reports.
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