Will be compiled before the query is executed. On searching over the net, I found that parameters with an ! (exclamation) mark are compiled before the query is executed. So, in this case the status was an optional parameter. I had to write a query to find all new customers which were added between two given dates and if an optional status value of the customer is passed the report should should be further refined to include only those customer which were added and had the same status value as passed, If the status is not provided it should be ignored in SQL query in jasper report. In one of my projects, While working with jasper reports, one of the requirement I faced was of passing optional parameter to the sql query in jasper report.