eventHandlerClass with initialize Script

[giangianoulas]

Hi

Is there a reason why we cannot both?
As can seen here if we have an initialize script then the handler does not get called.
Where is the harm in this?

            org.eclipse.birt.report.engine.script.internal.ReportScriptExecutor#handleInitialize
            if (handleScript((Object)null, scriptExpr, context).didRun()) {
                return;
            }

            IReportEventHandler eh = (IReportEventHandler)getInstance(design, context);
            if (eh != null) {
                eh.initialize(context.getReportContext());
            }

[hvbtup]

Disclaimer: I never used Java handlers. My personal opinion is:

I don't think that there is a strict technical reason for not running both handlers.

OTOH there is no need to allow running both handlers:
If you alread have developed a Java handler for the item, then what's the reason to put part of the logic into a Javascript handler and run both? It seems safer and cleaner to have all the logic inside the Java handler then.

Probably only a very small percentage of BIRT users know about Java handlers at all, and even less are using them.
So, while changing this behavior should be considered a breaking change in theory, hardly anyone would notice at all.

So while I don't see a reason to change the behavior, I don't have any objections against it.

From my POV: Feel free to submit a PR.
But if you are going to change the behavior, please consider performing this change for all the other events as well, not only the initialize event of one special item type (because that would be confusing for everyone except you), and describe the new expected behavior in detail.

[giangianoulas]

My sitution is that I inherited a platform with 500+ reports, some use handler others use init script. I am in no situation to know the business logic behind every report. This platform used a 10+ year old birt version so I updated it to 4.12.0, PDF rendering changed a little so i needed to do something about all reports in a single place. I did it with css in the existing java handler.
I already solved the original problem in another way. I will close this but I see no reason for this not to work both ways. I will probably create a PR later. Thank you