Scripting support

[notjavasavvy]

Hi,

I'm trying to build a web-based reporting solution. I have searched high and low on the web and believe this is not only the best open source toolkit around, it's also better than any commercial products that I have come across so far.

Sadly, although I have some experience, Java isn't my strongest language. While I'm certain that I could eventually muddle my way through enough examples to get things to work I think it would add too much time to an effort that is already pretty large.

One product (available with a royalty free distribution for ~$500), although not nearly as nice looking or functional, has support for php which, given my perl background, is something I feel I could master relatively quickly. Do you plan to add support for php or any other scripting language? Do you know if anyone has extended your solution to enable this?

Whatever the case, keep up the great work - this is an awesome solution. If my situation changes I wouldn't hesitate to use this in my application. I'll also pass along your site when anyone asks.

Thanks in advance for your help...

[rfuller]

This isn't exactly the answer to the question you were asking, but... it appears that it is possible to integrate java support into your PHP environment, suggesting that in theory you could use jfreechart from PHP.

http://si.php.net:8888/manual/en/ref.java.php

Another approach would be to (have someone) put jfreechart behind a web-services interface, then you could use those services from PHP or perl or whatever.

[notjavasavvy]

Thanks for passing that along - it might be an option. I'm not particularly hung up on php, any scripting language will do. The aforementioned product also provides JSP support which seems pretty straightforward although the more I work with JSP the more I'm thinking I could probably make java work too. I like the fact that you can be a little bit lazy with things, it seems to be like Java with training wheels. The more I think about it, it must be possible to integrate this with JSP too.

Thanks for the inspiration...

[Eli]

If Python fits your bill as a scripting language then it might be worthwile for you to take a look at Jython. It is an implementation of the Python language in Java and allows access to all Java-based libraries from Python.

[Guest]

Cool thanks!