How to create a XML Publisher report to display BLOB images from an RDF report

Written by Sheena Sidhu

Saturday, 15 August 2009 11:23

XML Publisher (release 10.1.3 now BI Publisher) uses templates (data and layout both) to
define a BI publisher report.
The good news is that existing custom RDF (oracle designer) reports can be converted into BI
reports easily using utilities available online.
Below are the various steps listed for a custom report:
1. From the web address: http://bipublisher.blogspot.com/, download and install the BIP
conversion utility (link on the top right of the page) by clicking on the link under Code. After
downloading, click on the Video link next to the code link to understand how to use this utility.
To include the BLOB image, which is stored as LONG RAW in the database, make sure its
location is selected in the report data group.
2. At the end of the conversion process you will have file like: .xml file and the .pls files for the
triggers and such that you have in your report. This utility also converts the format/layout to a
RDF/word format, which you may use as such or not. I needed a different format than the report
layout, so I did not use it.
Listing of the files that will be created. You will need to execute the .pls and .plb files in the
database.

3. Now you are going to register the data template and the layout file generated above, in the
application. Give yourself the XML Publisher Administrator and system administrator
responsibilities.
4. From the system administrator responsibility, query the concurrent program that you used to
run the report earlier. Navigation:

Change the format to XML:

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How to create a XML Publisher report to display BLOB images from an RDF report
Written by Sheena Sidhu
Saturday, 15 August 2009 11:23

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Steps for displaying dynamic BLOB Images:

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How to create a XML Publisher report to display BLOB images from an RDF report
Written by Sheena Sidhu
Saturday, 15 August 2009 11:23

Make sure that the images that you want to display, are stored in a dir in
operating system.
For
UNIX
,
put them
under
$OA_MEDIA dir or any dir under that.
Make sure that the
original RDF report has this element queried from the database so that each
image is connected to the right record in the database.
See image url xml tag in step10 above.
Once you have upload the data xml file as in step12 above, create a
placeholder for your image/blob file by choosing Insert menu option in word
and then choose Picture->From File and choose a dummy file. Insert a
picture and size it as you want.
Once you are done, double click on the image and under the web tab do
this:

IMAGE_URL is the XML tag name in the data xml file. The image_url has to
be a web address location that the server can access. It cannot be your c: or
something like that. That wont work.
This is the only way that I could get the BLOB to appear in my BI report.
There are more details on this step in the XDOUSerGuide.pdf document that
you downloaded with the BI Publisher desktop utility. Search for image/blob

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How to create a XML Publisher report to display BLOB images from an RDF report
Written by Sheena Sidhu
Saturday, 15 August 2009 11:23

in the PDF.

Good Reference: http://oracle.anilpassi.com/xml-publisher-concurrent-progr

am-xmlp.html

Metalink docid:

551013.1

http://apps2fusion.com/at/51-ps/262-xml-publisher-and-data-template-sql-q
uery-to-develop-bi-publisher-reports

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How to create a XML Publisher report to display BLOB images from an RDF report
Written by Sheena Sidhu
Saturday, 15 August 2009 11:23

There is also Tim Dexters blog as well: http://blogs.oracle.com/xmlpublisher/

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