JasperReport: Purpose of the Details Band

Question

I figured this would be something that would be fairly-well documented as its a central theme to JasperReports, however I can\'t find an answer for this anywhere.

Answer 1

The details band is indeed the band where each element of the data source is reported. The report engine automatically iterates over the data source and inserts data into the template of the detail band with respective element of the data source.

You may of course have several elements on a single page. According to the properties of the band (split allowed, height, etc.), the paging will be handled by Jasper Reports automatically, and it's the engine that will thus decide how many elements are printed on each page, when to go to the following page, etc.

The details band is not printed if you have nothing in the data source. The printing of the other bands depend on the parameters of the report.