Integrate with CSV Data in JReport Designer

The CData JDBC Driver for CSV data enables access to live data from dashboards and reports as if CSV were a relational database, allowing you to query CSV data using familiar SQL queries. This article shows how to connect to CSV data as a JDBC data source and create reports based on CSV data in JReport Designer.

Connect to CSV Data

1. Edit C:\JReport\Designer\bin\setenv.bat to add the location of the JAR file to the ADDCLASSPATH variable:

   ...
   set ADDCLASSPATH=%JAVAHOME%\lib\tools.jar;C:\Program Files\CData\CData JDBC Driver for CSV 2016\lib\cdata.jdbc.csv.jar;
   ...
   

2. Create a new data source by clicking File New Data Source.
3. In the resulting dialog, create a name for the data source (CData JDBC Driver for CSV), select JDBC, and click OK.
4. In the Get JDBC Connection Information dialog you will configure your connection to the JDBC driver:
   • Driver: Be sure that the Driver box is checked and fill in the name of the class for the driver:

     cdata.jdbc.csv.CSVDriver

   • URL: Enter the JDBC URL. This starts with jdbc:csv: and is followed by a semicolon-separated list of connection properties.

     Connecting to Local or Cloud-Stored (Box, Google Drive, Amazon S3, SharePoint) CSV Files

     CData Drivers let you work with CSV files stored locally and stored in cloud storage services like Box, Amazon S3, Google Drive, or SharePoint, right where they are.

     Setting connection properties for local files

     Set the URI property to local folder path.

     Setting connection properties for files stored in Amazon S3

     To connect to CSV file(s) within Amazon S3, set the URI property to the URI of the Bucket and Folder where the intended CSV files exist. In addition, at least set these properties:

     • AWSAccessKey: AWS Access Key (username)
     • AWSSecretKey: AWS Secret Key

     Setting connection properties for files stored in Box

     To connect to CSV file(s) within Box, set the URI property to the URI of the folder that includes the intended CSV file(s). Use the OAuth authentication method to connect to Box.

     Dropbox

     To connect to CSV file(s) within Dropbox, set the URI proprerty to the URI of the folder that includes the intended CSV file(s). Use the OAuth authentication method to connect to Dropbox. Either User Account or Service Account can be used to authenticate.

     SharePoint Online (SOAP)

     To connect to CSV file(s) within SharePoint with SOAP Schema, set the URI proprerty to the URI of the document library that includes the intended CSV file. Set User, Password, and StorageBaseURL.

     SharePoint Online REST

     To connect to CSV file(s) within SharePoint with REST Schema, set the URI proprerty to the URI of the document library that includes the intended CSV file. StorageBaseURL is optional. If not set, the driver will use the root drive. OAuth is used to authenticate.

     Google Drive

     To connect to CSV file(s) within Google Drive, set the URI property to the URI of the folder that includes the intended CSV file(s). Use the OAuth authentication method to connect and set InitiateOAuth to GETANDREFRESH.

     Built-in Connection String Designer

     For assistance in constructing the JDBC URL, use the connection string designer built into the CSV JDBC Driver. Either double-click the JAR file or execute the jar file from the command-line.

     java -jar cdata.jdbc.csv.jar
     

     Fill in the connection properties and copy the connection string to the clipboard.

     👁 Using the built-in connection string designer to generate a JDBC URL (Salesforce is shown.)
     

     When you configure the JDBC URL, you may also want to set the Max Rows connection property. This will limit the number of rows returned, which is especially helpful for improving performance when designing reports and visualizations.

     Below is a typical JDBC URL:

     jdbc:csv:URI=/PATH/TO/MyCSVFilesFolder;

   • User: The username to authenticate with; typically left blank.
   • Password: The password to authenticate with; typically left blank.
   👁 Configuring the connection to the JDBC Driver (Salesforce is shown.)
   

5. In the Add Table dialog, select the tables you wish to include in your report (or in future reports using this data source) and click Add.

   👁 Adding Tables. (Salesforce is shown.)
   

   Click Done once the dialog has completed loading the tables.

6. In the Catalog Browser, you can create the queries that you will use to populate your reports. You can do this now, or after you create your report. In either case, expand () the data source (CData JDBC Driver for CSV), right-click on Queries, and select Add Query. 👁 Adding a query for data to be used in the report. (Salesforce is shown.)
   
7. In the Add Table/View/Query dialog, expand () the JDBC URL and Tables and select the table(s) you wish to use in the query and click OK. 👁 Selecting a table for the query. (Salesforce is shown.)
   
8. In the Query Editor dialog, you can select the columns you wish to include or simply click the SQL button and manually input your own query. For example:

   SELECT City, SUM(TotalDue) FROM Customer GROUP BY City
   

   👁 Editing the query. (Salesforce is shown.)
   

   With the query built, click OK to close the Query Editor dialog. At this point you are ready to add CSV data to a new or existing report.

   NOTE: Now that the query is built, you can create a Business View based on the query. With a Business View, you can create Web reports or library components based on the query. For more information on this, refer to the JReport tutorials.

Add CSV Data to a Report

You are now ready to create a report with CSV data.

1. Create a new report (File New Page Report) or open the Chart Wizard for an existing report.
2. Select the Query (or create a new one; see above).
👁 Selecting the query to use. (Salesforce is shown.)

3. Assign a Category and Value for the chart from the columns in your Query and click Finish.
👁 Assigning columns to define the chart. (Salesforce is shown.)

4. Click the View tab for your report to see the chart.