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You can run DataVision from either your favorite window manager or the command line. If you start DataVision from the command line, you may run a report without ever opening the DataVision GUI screens. In either case, you will have to supply a database password if one is required for access to the database.
When you start DataVision without specifying an existing report XML file, a new, empty report will be opened.
To start DataVision and create a new report, launch the file datavision.sh (Unix) or datavision.bat (Windows) by single- or double-clicking its icon (whichever is appropriate for your window manager). An empty report design window will appear and a database connection dialog box will open. See Connecting to the Database for help filling out that dialog box.
To open an existing DataVision file or files, drag them on top of the datavision.sh icon.
To start DataVision from the command line, run the script datavision.sh. It sets the Java class path and runs DataVision, passing all command line arguments to the application.
datavision.sh [-c | -d | -h | -l | -x | -w] [-s delim_char] [-r parameter_value_xml_file] [-n | -p db_password] [-g lang_code] [-i region_code] [xml_file...]
The first group of options tell DataVision to run the XML report file(s) without opening the report design GUI. Each option character represents a layout engine:
If you specify a layout engine you must also specify at least one XML file. The output file name for each report is created by replacing the xml_file file name's extension with one appropriate for the specified layout engine. The Swing layout engine doesn't produce an output file. See Layout Engines for more information about the output produced by each layout engine.
The -s option lets you specify a separator character for the character-delimited file layout engine. The default delimiter character is a comma. You may have to quote or escape your separator on the command line, especially if it is a space, tab, or other character that is special to the shell.
If you specify a layout engine you must specify a password or explicitly tell DataVision that you do not need a password. The -p option lets you specify the database connection password. The -n lets you tell DataVision that the password is either unnecessary or it is the empty string. These two options are mutually exclusive.
If there are parameters in your report and you are running a "headless" report (not opening the design window), then you need to specify the values of the parameters that appear in the report. To do this, you create a small XML file and specify the parameter values inside it. Pass this file on the command line using the -r option. For an example, see the file parameters.xml in the examples directory.
If you do not specify a layout engine and do not specify either the -p or -n option, you will be asked for the database password when the report is opened for editing.
If you are opening a new report for editing in the GUI (no XML file was specified on the command line), a database connection dialog box will appear before the report design window opens. See Connecting to the Database for information about the database connection dialog.
The -g and -i options let you override your system's default language and region. Each value is a two letter code. The lang_code is a two-letter language code (for example, "en" for English, "fr" for French). The region_code is a two-letter region or country code; examples include "US" for the United States and "FR" for France Both values are case-insensitive.
Create a new report and start editing it:
datavision.sh
Open an existing report and start editing it:
datavision.sh report_file.xml
Open an existing report that requires no password, run it and generate the LaTeX file report_file.tex:
datavision.sh -l -n report_file.xml
Open an existing report that asks for parameter values but requires no password, run it and generate the LaTeX file report_file.tex:
datavision.sh -l -r parameters.xml -n report_file.xml
Open an existing report that requires the password "fred", run it and generate the comma-separated file report_file.csv:
datavision.sh -c -p fred report_file.xml
Open an existing report that requires the password "fred", run it and generate the tab-separated file report_file.tab:
datavision.sh -c -s " " -p fred report_file.xml
(There should be a tab character between the double quotes.)
On some Linux systems (for example, Red Hat 7.x), when you start DataVision a whole slew of identical error messages are generated that look something like this:
Font specified in font.properties not found [--symbol-medium-r-normal--*-%d-*-*-p-*-adobe-fontspecific]
These error messages are harmless. There is at least one way to get rid of them: edit the file $JAVA_HOME/jre/lib/font.properties and replace all occurrences of "-adobe-" with "-urw". Note that you may need to be root to edit this file.
Tom Van Overbeke (tom.van.overbeke@pandora.be) describes another way to get rid of the messages: "I checked all the fonts.dir available on my system, there were a dozen of them. then I grepped through all of them to check for "standard symbols l", and i found the entry in the file /usr/share/fonts/default/Type1/fonts.dir. The entry was:
s050000l.pfb -URW-Standard Symbols L-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-urw-fontspecific
"and I changed it to:
s050000l.pfb -URW-Standard Symbols L-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-adobe-fontspecific
"Then I quit X, stopped and restarted xfs and restarted X, and it worked."
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