If you are looking for a production crystal reports server look into SAP Crystal Server.

What is CrystalCmd

CrystalCMD is a C#/dotnet and Java program that loads JSON files into Crystal Reports to produce PDFs. Initially an experimental proof of concept, it demonstrates generating Crystal Reports on Linux using Java and .NET framework (wine).

The main focus is the c#/dotnet implementation running within Windows/IIS and Linux/Wine.

Key Features:

• PDF Generation: Converts JSON (with embedded csv) data into PDF reports with Crystal Reports templates.
• Command Line & Server Modes: Supports both modes; server mode is recommended for better performance.
• Cross-Platform: Works on Linux and can run .NET implementations using Wine.

Use cases

• Provide a path for porting a asp.net framework site from windows and iis to asp.net dotnet core net6.0 or newer on linux
• Provide support for developers to work on projects that use dotnet crystal reports while using a mac
• Provide a way to fence off legacy crystal reports behind a web api

Development

CrystalCMD is developed with the following work flow:

• Nothing happens for months/years
• Someone needs it to do something it doesn't already do
• That person implements that something and submits a pull request
• Repeat if it doesn't have a feature that you want it to have, add it
  • If it has a bug you need fixed, fix it

Example usage

Note that, when using the command line option, this is very slow and highly recommended to use the server option.

test server: c.majorsilence.com

• https://c.majorsilence.com/status
• https://c.majorsilence.com/export

Example running from base CrystalCmd folder.

curl https://c.majorsilence.com/status

curl -u "username:password" -F "reportdata=@test.json" -F "reporttemplate=@the_dataset_report.rpt" https://c.majorsilence.com/export --output testout.pdf

# test localhost
curl -u "username:password" -F "reportdata=@test.json" -F "reporttemplate=@the_dataset_report.rpt" http://127.0.0.1:4321/export --output testout.pdf

Server mode

1. http://localhost:4321/status
2. http://localhost:4321/export
   • Returns pdf as bytestream
   • Must be passed two post variables as byte arrays
     • reporttemplate
     • reportdata

Postman Collection

Majorsilence.CrystalCMD.postman_collection.json

Dotnet

Use this project to generate test data from c# program

See Crystal Reports, Developer for Visual Studio Downloads.

• Download the Crystal Reports .net runtime from: https://origin.softwaredownloads.sap.com/public/site/index.html

  • CR for Visual Studio SP35 CR Runtime 64-bit
  • CR for Visual Studio SP35 CR Runtime 32-bit

• Majorsilence.CrystalCmd.NetFrameworkServer

  • net4.8 webapi project

• Majorsilence.CrystalCmd.NetframeworkConsoleServer

  • an embedio based console app/webserver
  • can be run on Linux using wine

See the dotnet/Readme.md file for more info..

Crystal report examples

https://wiki.scn.sap.com/wiki/display/BOBJ/Crystal+Reports+Java++SDK+Samples#CrystalReportsJavaSDKSamples-Database

Java

Basic info on the java version.

command line mode

CrystalCmd upports running as a command line tool. Pass in path to report, data, and output fileand a pdf is generated.

java -jar CrystalCmd.jar -reportpath "/path/to/report.rpt" -datafile "/path/to/data.json" -outpath "/path/to/generated/file.pdf"

example 2

java -jar CrystalCmd.jar -reportpath "/home/peter/Projects/CrystalCmd/the_dataset_report.rpt" -datafile "/home/peter/Projects/CrystalCmd/test.json" -outpath "/home/peter/Projects/CrystalCmd/java/CrystalCmd/build/output.pdf"

Run the server

CrystalCmd supports running in server mode. If you run it with no command line arguments it starts a web server listening on port 4321. There are two end points that can be called.

java -jar CrystalCmd.jar

Call the server.

curl -u "username:password" -F "reporttemplate=@the_dataset_report.rpt" -F "reportdata=@test.json" http://localhost:4321/export > myoutputfile.pdf

Example using docker

docker run -p 2005:4321 -t majorsilence/crystalcmd

Or run it as a daemon.

docker run -p 2005:4321 -d majorsilence/crystalcmd

Now check the status in your browser:

• http://localhost:2005/status

Example of using the installed snap

install

snap install ./java/CrystalCmd/build/CrystalCmd.snap --force-dangerous --classic

run

crystalcmd -reportpath "/home/peter/Projects/CrystalWrapper/the_dataset_report.rpt" -datafile "/home/peter/Projects/CrystalWrapper/test.json" -outpath "/home/peter/Projects/CrystalWrapper/Java/build/output.pdf"

Building Snaps

sudo ./build_snap.sh

dev setup

sudo apt-get install openjdk-11-jdk

Eclipse

Download eclipse java edition.

Setup eclipse with crystal references.

Import java/CrystalCmd folder as ecplise project (Eclipse -> File -> Open Projects from File System).

IntelliJ

Download intelliJ community edition.

Runtime setup

sudo apt-get install openjdk-11-jre

Export Jar

• Eclipse -> File -> Export -> Java -> Runnable Jar File

Package required libraries into generated JAR

output as "CrystalCmd.jar" in folder ./CrystalCmd/java/CrystalCmd/build

Crystal reports Eclipse JAR library downloads

https://origin.softwaredownloads.sap.com/public/site/index.html

OpenJDK PDF Export Problem, fonts

https://answers.sap.com/questions/676449/nullpointerexception-in-opentypefontmanager.html?childToView=708783&answerPublished=true#answer-708783

After some experimentation, a workaround was to create the fonts folder in the AdoptOpenJDK JRE (jre\lib\fonts) and copy a single font file from the Linux msttcorefonts mentioned above into the newly created fonts folder. My document uses all Arial font, but it doesn't seem to matter what font file is in the fonts folder. I copied Webdings.ttf. The file does have to be a real font file. I tried making a dummy text file and rename it to Webdings.ttf, but the NPE occurred with the dummy font file.

Once a real font is copied to jre\lib\fonts, The PDF is created just fine with the Arial font embedded. It seems that there just has to be a one real font at jre\lib\fonts to get started, and then crjava/AdoptOpenJDK will eventually use fontconfig to find the correct Windows font.

Copy a file from

Windows Example:

Copy a file to C:\Users[UserName].jdks\openjdk-16.0.1\lib\fonts from C:\Windows\Fonts.

Mac Example

copy '/System/Library/Fonts' into '/Users/[UserName]]/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/[JavaVersion]/Contents/Home/lib/fonts'

Linux Example:

# try the ubuntu or fedora way first
# https://answers.sap.com/questions/676449/nullpointerexception-in-opentypefontmanager.html
apk add --no-cache msttcorefonts-installer && update-ms-fonts && fc-cache -f && ln -s /usr/share/fonts/truetype/msttcorefonts /usr/lib/jvm/default-jvm/jre/lib/fonts

ubuntu

apt install fonts-dejavu fontconfig msttcorefonts-installer && update-ms-fonts && fc-cache -f
ln -s /usr/share/fonts/truetype/msttcorefonts /usr/lib/jvm/java-1.11.0-openjdk-amd64/lib/fonts

fedora

dnf install fontconfig dejavu-sans-fonts dejavu-serif-fonts