3. Additional classes

3.1 Plugin Resource Class

Create a class oracle.reports.plugin.datasource.mypds.myTextResource to map the messages and error numbers used in your PDS.
Use this class to add customized error messages, numbers, constant string names.

Text PDS uses TextResource class to achieve the above. It uses a TextBundle class in oracle.reports.plugin.datasource.textpds.resource package to map error numbers with corresponding strings. There is one TextBundle class for each NLS. For e.g. TextBundle.class for strings in English, TextBundle_ar.class for strings in Arabic and so on.
 

3.2 PluginException class for handling runtime exceptions

Each public Plugin method throws oracle.reports.plugin.PluginException to pass any important message in case of an exception.
Use this exception class to pass necessary error information to the log or UI. The PluginException expects 3 parameters
  public PluginException(String module, int errorCode, String errorMsg)

for eg:
    throw new PluginException("TextPDS", 0, "TextDataSource.execute()");

The error code of the exception has to be defined for each module

The oracle.reports.plugin.datasource.textpds.resource.TextBundle class defines some error code and corresponding error message

  static final Object[][] contents = {
    {"63500", "No URL specified for {0}"},
    {"63501", "URL {0} specified is not according to the file format {1} at line number {2}  "},

}

throw new PluginException("TextPDS", TextResource.ERROR_NO_URL, err);
The {0} will be replaced with "err" in the final error message.
 

3.3 Configuration File

If you PDS has a configuration file, copy it to the <ORACLEHOME>\reports\conf directory.
Text PDS has an XML based configuration file.

Register the configuration file for a PDS in rwbuilder.conf or <myServer>.conf

   <pluginParam name="xmlpds" type="file">xmlpds.conf</pluginParam>
   <pluginParam name="jdbcpds" type="file">jdbcpds.conf</pluginParam>
   <pluginParam name="textpds" type="file">textpds.conf</pluginParam>

Plugin gives API to fetch the contents of the configuration file as a String as below

TextDataSource
  protected void extractConfigFile() {
..
        String XMLColumnData = getReportContext().getPluginParam("textpds");

}
The contents of this would be read once when the Text PDS is initialized.

Reports provides a configuration file to store your proxy server information.
see <ORA_HOME>/reports/conf/proxyinfo.xml.

To have your own proxy configuration, place the file in the directory <ORACLEHOME>/reports/conf/myproxyinfo.xml.
Comment the following line in  rwbuilder.conf or <myServer>.conf
 <!--pluginParam name="proxy" type="file">myproxyinfo.xml</pluginParam-->

Plugin gives API to fetch the contents of the proxy configuration file as a String as below

TextDataSource
  protected void extractConfigFile() {
..
        String XMLProxyData = getReportContext().getPluginParam("proxy");
}
 

3.4 Plugin Tracing

You can log error or debug message of your PDS using Plugin tracing facility. To do so,

1. import the class: oracle.reports.plugin.utility.Trace;
2. get the Reports Trace object as
    Trace mytrace = getReportContext().getTrace();
3. mytrace.writeln( int traceFlag, String location, String message );

e.g.:
    try {
        mytrace.writeln(Trace.DEBUG, "textpds",  msg);
    } catch (Exception e) {
    }