Upgrading to JasperReports Version 7
Background
In BBj 25.00 and higher, the BBJasper utility continues to use JasperReports Library 6, with a pathway to preview JasperReports Library 7. Please be aware that for the next major release in 2026, BBj 26.00, the BBJasper utility will only use JasperReports 7 because Jaspersoft typically only offers two-year long-term support for each version.
Since JasperReports 7 is not backward compatible, this document serves as a starting point for developers to upgrade and test reports before the release of BBj 26.00.
Resave and Recompile Reports
JasperReports 7 is not backward compatible, so resave and recompile all reports with Jaspersoft Studio 7, both .jrxml (source) and .jasper (compiled). Download Jaspersoft Studio 7 from the Jaspersoft community edition page. To prevent conflicts, match the version of Jaspersoft Studio with the downloaded jasperreport-javaflow JAR.
Download JARs
The JasperReport Library for 7 and higher is modulized, so several JARs need to be installed. The BBJasper utility for BBj 25.00 and higher defaults to JasperReports Library 6, but uses JasperReports Library 7 if the SSCP includes its JARs. Each JAR can be downloaded from the JasperReports Maven Repository list. Each package has a download page for each version that includes a download link for the jar:
BASIS has begun testing the following 7.0.1 JARs for BBJasper:
Note:
Do not download the jasperreports package, as BBj uses the jasperreports-javaflow package instead.
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jasperreports-data-adapters (used by excel-poi).
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jasperreports-jdt (for compiling jrxml) .
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jasperreports-json(used by data-adapters).
Note:
Ensure the compile dependencies are also installed for each package. Check the BBj 25.x Classpath Overview for the JARs in BBj 25.x.
Session-Specific Classpath (SSCP)
After downloading the JARs, create a Session-Specific Classpath (SSCP) to run BBj programs using the BBJasper utility.
Example
The following is an example of using the SSCP to run the BBJasper Utility demo. A similar command line can be used to run BBj programs that use the BBJasper Utility:
bbj -CPjasperreports7 bbjasper.bbj