Introduction #

Liferay has a "Reports" portlet, which is a fully-fledged report application. It is cool.

Sometimes a client may ask for a PDF file for simple reporting purposes. This can be a small portlet using a resource URL. The resource URL is as specified in JSR 286.

Environment #

• Liferay 5.1.2
• Tomcat 6.0
• MySQL

JSP Side #

<input type="button" value="Submit" onClick="location.href = '<portlet:resourceURL><portlet:param name="reportType" value="pdf" /></portlet:resourceURL>'" />

Portlet Java Code #

	public void serveResource(
			ResourceRequest req, ResourceResponse res)
		throws PortletException, IOException {

		String rType = ParamUtil.getString(req, "reportType");
		
		HttpServletRequest request = PortalUtil.getHttpServletRequest(req);
		
		HttpSession session = request.getSession();
		ThemeDisplay themeDisplay = (ThemeDisplay)req.getAttribute(
				WebKeys.THEME_DISPLAY);
		Company company = themeDisplay.getCompany();
		
		if(rType != null && rType.equals("pdf")){
			
			try {
				
				String msg = "Latest Weather Report";
				
				Document document = new Document();
				ByteArrayOutputStream baos = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
				PdfWriter.getInstance(document, baos);
				document.open();
				document.add(new Paragraph(msg));
				document.add(Chunk.NEWLINE);
				
				document.add(new Paragraph("It is a sunny day today."));
				
				document.close();
				
				res.setContentType("application/pdf");
				res.addProperty(
					HttpHeaders.CACHE_CONTROL, "max-age=3600, must-revalidate");
				
				res.setContentLength(baos.size());
				
				OutputStream out = res.getPortletOutputStream();
				baos.writeTo(out);
				
				out.flush();
				out.close();
			} catch (Exception e2) {
				System.out.println("Error in " + getClass().getName() + "\n" + e2);
			}
			
		}
		else{

			   try {
				   Workbook wb = new HSSFWorkbook();
				    CreationHelper createHelper = wb.getCreationHelper();
				    Sheet sheet = wb.createSheet("new sheet");

				    Row row = sheet.createRow((short)0);
				    Cell cell = row.createCell(0);
				    cell.setCellValue(1);

				    row.createCell(1).setCellValue(1.2);
				    row.createCell(2).setCellValue(
				         createHelper.createRichTextString("This is a string"));
				    row.createCell(3).setCellValue(true);

				    res.setContentType("application/vnd.ms-excel");
				    res.addProperty(
				    		HttpHeaders.CACHE_CONTROL, "max-age=3600, must-revalidate");
							
					OutputStream out = res.getPortletOutputStream();
					wb.write(out);
					out.flush();
					out.close();
			       } catch (Exception e) {
				        System.out.println("Exception occurred ...");
			       } 
			       
		}
	}

Future Enhancement #

(1) Generate an Excel report