Integrate with DB2 Data in JReport Designer

Jerod Johnson
Director, Technology Evangelism

Create charts and reports based on DB2 data in JReport Designer.

The CData JDBC Driver for DB2 data enables access to live data from dashboards and reports as if DB2 were a relational database, allowing you to query DB2 data using familiar SQL queries. This article shows how to connect to DB2 data as a JDBC data source and create reports based on DB2 data in JReport Designer.

Connect to DB2 Data

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 DB2 2016\lib\cdata.jdbc.db2.jar;
...

Create a new data source by clicking File New Data Source.
In the resulting dialog, create a name for the data source (CData JDBC Driver for DB2), select JDBC, and click OK.
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.db2.DB2Driver
```
- URL: Enter the JDBC URL. This starts with jdbc:db2: and is followed by a semicolon-separated list of connection properties.
  Set the following properties to connect to DB2:
  - Server: Set this to the name of the server running DB2.
  - Port: Set this to the port the DB2 server is listening on.
  - Database: Set this to the name of the DB2 database.
  - User: Set this to the username of a user allowed to access the database.
  - Password: Set this to the password of a user allowed to access the database.
  You will also need to install the corresponding DB2 driver:
  - Windows: Install the IBM Data Server Provider for .NET.
    On Windows, installing the IBM Data Server Provider is sufficient, as the installation registers it in the machine.config.
  - Java: Install the IBM Data Server Driver for JDBC.
    In the Java version, place the IBM Data Server Driver JAR in the www\WEB-INF\lib\ folder for this application.
  Built-in Connection String Designer
  
  For assistance in constructing the JDBC URL, use the connection string designer built into the DB2 JDBC Driver. Either double-click the JAR file or execute the jar file from the command-line.
```
java -jar cdata.jdbc.db2.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:db2:Server=10.0.1.2;Port=50000;User=admin;Password=admin;Database=test;
```
- 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.)
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.
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 DB2), right-click on Queries, and select Add Query. 👁 Adding a query for data to be used in the report. (Salesforce is shown.)
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.)
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 Orders.Freight, Customers.ContactName FROM Customers INNER JOIN Orders ON Customers.CustomerId=Orders.CustomerId
```
👁 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 DB2 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.