BIRT report for lists of lists - birt

Question

I'm a bit of a BIRT newbie, and I could really do with a hand.
Some background:
I'm developing some software which allows display and simple modelling of Layer 1 connectivity in a data centre.
This is Java based, running on Tomcat, using BIRT reports. BIRT fetches the data from a general web-service we've implemented, serving data up as XML, which BIRT fetches using SOAP.
The report I'm working on currently queries our system to find out the circuit trace on a particular port on a piece of equipment.
The simple report for this works fine. It gives an ancestry path to the assets, and then the specific asset and port.
For example, asset ID 49345, port 1 would result in a report that looks (a bit) like this...
Organization >> Comms Room >> Comms Room Cabinet 02 Rack 01 >> Comms Room C02 R01 Telephone Patch Panel P1 - B1
Organization >> Comms Room >> Comms Room Cabinet 02 Rack 01 >> Comms Room C02 R01 Patch Panel 02 P2 - B2
Organization >> Client/Server development >> U1 ClntSvr FB 02 >> U1 ClntSvr FB 02 I4 P2 - B2
This says that the back of the telephone patch panel goes to the front, via a patch cord to another panel, to the back of that panel, to the back of a floor box.
This report works quite happily.
One customer wants more!
They want the Excel export from the BIT report to be filterable, i.e. rather than having a delimited ancestry path, they need it in a list form, so when it's exported to Excel, each entry is on a different column.
I've modified my query to return an array of ancestry elements rather than a single string, and in its own way, this also works.
The SOAP response for this new query is below (for information - it may help)
<SOAP-ENV:Envelope xmlns:SOAP-ENV="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/">
<SOAP-ENV:Header/>
<SOAP-ENV:Body>
<FindCircuitByAssetAndPortResponse>
<CircuitDetail>
<FoundByAsset>Comms Room C02 R01 Telephone Patch Panel (id: 49345)</FoundByAsset>
<FoundByPort>P1</FoundByPort>
<CircuitAssetDetail>
<AssetId>49345</AssetId>
<AncestryPath>Organization >> Comms Room >> Comms Room Cabinet 02 Rack 01 >> Comms Room C02 R01 Telephone Patch Panel</AncestryPath>
<AncestryPathList>
<AncestryPathElement>Organization</AncestryPathElement>
<AncestryPathElement>Comms Room</AncestryPathElement>
<AncestryPathElement>Comms Room Cabinet 02 Rack 01</AncestryPathElement>
<AncestryPathElement>Comms Room C02 R01 Telephone Patch Panel</AncestryPathElement>
</AncestryPathList>
<AssetTypeName>Patch Panel</AssetTypeName>
<InPort>B1</InPort>
<OutPort>P1</OutPort>
</CircuitAssetDetail>
<CircuitAssetDetail>
<AssetId>49339</AssetId>
<AncestryPath>Organization >> Comms Room >> Comms Room Cabinet 02 Rack 01 >> Comms Room C02 R01 Patch Panel 02</AncestryPath>
<AncestryPathList>
<AncestryPathElement>Organization</AncestryPathElement>
<AncestryPathElement>Comms Room</AncestryPathElement>
<AncestryPathElement>Comms Room Cabinet 02 Rack 01</AncestryPathElement>
<AncestryPathElement>Comms Room C02 R01 Patch Panel 02</AncestryPathElement>
</AncestryPathList>
<AssetTypeName>Patch Panel</AssetTypeName>
<InPort>P2</InPort>
<OutPort>B2</OutPort>
</CircuitAssetDetail>
<CircuitAssetDetail>
<AssetId>48634</AssetId>
<AncestryPath>Organization >> Client/Server development >> U1 ClntSvr FB 02 >> U1 ClntSvr FB 02 I4</AncestryPath>
<AncestryPathList>
<AncestryPathElement>Organization</AncestryPathElement>
<AncestryPathElement>Client/Server development</AncestryPathElement>
<AncestryPathElement>U1 ClntSvr FB 02</AncestryPathElement>
<AncestryPathElement>U1 ClntSvr FB 02 I4</AncestryPathElement>
</AncestryPathList>
<AssetTypeName>Module</AssetTypeName>
<InPort>P2</InPort>
<OutPort>B2</OutPort>
</CircuitAssetDetail>
</CircuitDetail>
</FindCircuitByAssetAndPortResponse>
</SOAP-ENV:Body>
</SOAP-ENV:Envelope>
The report data set uses the deepest layer, i.e. the ancestry elements.
When it displays the data though, there is duplicated data. For example, the data above is now shown as...
Organization B1 - P1
Comms Room B1 - P1
Comms Room Cabinet 02 Rack 01 B1 - P1
Comms Room C02 R01 Telephone Patch Panel B1 - P1
Organization P2 - B2
Comms Room P2 - B2
Comms Room Cabinet 02 Rack 01 P2 - B2
Comms Room C02 R01 Patch Panel 02 P2 - B2
Organization P2 - B2
Client/Server development P2 - B2
U1 ClntSvr FB 02 P2 - B2
U1 ClntSvr FB 02 I4 P2 - B2
This is "correct" in that we're getting back 12 "rows" via XML. The column mapping says that the element is the "current" data, the ports (P1 & B1) are "up" one level, and so on.
If I fetch the data with respect to the ancestry path list, we don't get duplicated data, but at this point, the ancestry path list isn't seen as a list, so either displays nothing at all, or just the first element from the list repeatedly, resulting in...
Organization B1 - P1
Organization
Organization
Organization
Organization P2 - B2
Organization
Organization
Organization
Organization P2 - B2
Organization
Organization
Organization
I'm 99% sure BIRT will do what I need, but I'm a newcomer to it, and I'm surprised I've got as far as I have!
This problem is non-specific, as we have other situations where we may need to fetch lists of lists.
My apologies if this has already been covered. I have looked, but it may be listed under terminology I'm not familiar with.
Many thanks.
Pete.

Answer 1

If you want the output like this
Organization B1 - P1
Comms Room
Comms Room Cabinet 02 Rack 01
Comms Room C02 R01 Telephone Patch Panel
Organization P2 - B2
Comms Room
Comms Room Cabinet 02 Rack 01
Comms Room C02 R01 Patch Panel 02
Organization
Client/Server development
U1 ClntSvr FB 02
U1 ClntSvr FB 02 I4
In BIRT there is a option called GROUP for this you have to do is
select the table and you will have the properties dialog in there you will have group options and in that options it will list out the column names of your query and you can select your own column to group
view this tutorial for grouping