JFreeChart Architecture

This chapter explains basic class level and application level architectures of JFreeChart to give you an idea about how JFreeChart interacts with different classes and how it fits in your Java based application.

Class Level Architecture

The class level architecture explains how various classes from the library interacts with each other to create various types of charts.
Following is the detail of the units used in the above block diagram :

Units	Description
File	The source having user input to be used for creating a dataset in the file.
Database	The source having user input to be used for creating a dataset in the database.
Create Dataset	Accepts the dataset and stores the dataset into dataset object.
General Dataset	This type of dataset is mainly used for pie charts.
Category Dataset	This type of dataset is used for bar chart, line chart,etc.
Series Dataset	This type of dataset is used for storing series of data and construct line charts.
Series Collection Dataset	The different categories of series datasets are added to series collection dataset. This type of dataset is used for XYLine Charts.
Create Chart	This is the method which is executed to create final chart.
Frame/Image	The chart is displayed on a Swing Frame or an image is created.

Application Level Architecture

The application level architecture explains where JFreeChart library sits inside a Java Application.
The client program receives user data and then it make use standard Java and JFreeChart APIs based on requirements to generate the output in the form of either a frame, which can be displayed directly inside the application or independently in the image formats such as JPEG or PNG.