Bind Reports to a Data Source

At design time, you can connect a section report to a data source through the Report Data Source dialog. You can access the Report Data Source dialog by doing one of the following:

On the detail section band, click the Data Source Icon.
Click the gray area around the design surface and in the commands section at the bottom of the Properties Window, click the Edit Data Source command.

There are four tabs in the dialog for the four most commonly used data sources.

The following steps take you through the process of binding reports to each data source. These steps assume that you have already added an ActiveReports 7 Section Report template in a Visual Studio project. See Adding an ActiveReport to a Project for information on adding different report layouts.

To use the OLE DB data source

To use the SQL data source

To use the XML data source

You also have the option to use an unbound or an IEnumerable data source. See the following procedures to implement these data source connections in code.

To use an Unbound data source

To create a data connection

Add an Imports (VisualBasic.NET) or using (C#) statement for System.Data and System.Data.Oledb namespaces.
Right-click the gray area outside the design surface to select the report and select Properties.
In the Properties window that appears, click the Events icon to view the available events for the report.
In the events list, double-click the ReportStart event. This creates an event-handling method for the ReportStart event in code.

Add the following code to the handler.

To write code in VisualBasic.NET

Visual Basic.NET code. Paste above the ReportStart event.	Copy Code
Dim m_cnnString As String Dim sqlString As String Dim m_reader As OleDbDataReader Dim m_cnn As OleDbConnection

Visual Basic.NET code. Paste inside the ReportStart event.	Copy Code
'Set data source connection string. m_cnnString = "Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;" _ + "Data Source=C:\Users\YourUserName\Documents\ComponentOne Samples\ActiveReports Developer 7\Data\Nwind.mdb;Persist Security Info=False" 'Set data source SQL query. sqlString = "SELECT * FROM categories INNER JOIN products ON categories.categoryid " _ + "= products.categoryid ORDER BY products.categoryid, products.productid" 'Open connection and create DataReader. m_cnn = New OleDb.OleDbConnection(m_cnnString) Dim m_Cmd As New OleDb.OleDbCommand(sqlString, m_cnn) If m_cnn.State = ConnectionState.Closed Then m_cnn.Open() End If m_reader = m_Cmd.ExecuteReader()

Visual Basic.NET code. Paste inside the ReportStart event.

Copy Code

'Set data source connection string.
m_cnnString = "Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;" _
        + "Data Source=C:\Users\YourUserName\Documents\ComponentOne Samples\ActiveReports Developer 7\Data\Nwind.mdb;Persist Security Info=False"
'Set data source SQL query.    
sqlString = "SELECT * FROM categories INNER JOIN products ON categories.categoryid " _
        + "= products.categoryid ORDER BY products.categoryid, products.productid"
'Open connection and create DataReader.     
m_cnn = New OleDb.OleDbConnection(m_cnnString)
Dim m_Cmd As New OleDb.OleDbCommand(sqlString, m_cnn)
If m_cnn.State = ConnectionState.Closed Then
   m_cnn.Open()
End If
m_reader = m_Cmd.ExecuteReader()

To write code in C#

C# code. Paste above the ReportStart event.	Copy Code
private static OleDbConnection m_cnn; private static OleDbDataReader m_reader; private string sqlString; private string m_cnnString;

C# code. Paste inside the ReportStart event.	Copy Code
//Set data source connection string. m_cnnString = "Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data Source=" + @"C:\Users\YourUserName\Documents\ComponentOne Samples\ActiveReports Developer 7\Data\Nwind.mdb;Persist Security Info=False"; //Set data source SQL query. sqlString = "SELECT * FROM categories INNER JOIN products" + " ON categories.categoryid = products.categoryid" + " ORDER BY products.categoryid, products.productid"; //Open connection and create DataReader. m_cnn = new OleDbConnection(m_cnnString); OleDbCommand m_Cmd = new OleDbCommand(sqlString,m_cnn); if(m_cnn.State == ConnectionState.Closed) { m_cnn.Open(); } m_reader = m_Cmd.ExecuteReader();

C# code. Paste inside the ReportStart event.

Copy Code

//Set data source connection string.    
m_cnnString = "Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data Source="
        + @"C:\Users\YourUserName\Documents\ComponentOne Samples\ActiveReports Developer 7\Data\Nwind.mdb;Persist Security Info=False";
//Set data source SQL query.     
sqlString = "SELECT * FROM categories INNER JOIN products"
        + " ON categories.categoryid = products.categoryid"
        + " ORDER BY products.categoryid, products.productid";
//Open connection and create DataReader.               
m_cnn = new OleDbConnection(m_cnnString);
OleDbCommand m_Cmd = new OleDbCommand(sqlString,m_cnn);
if(m_cnn.State == ConnectionState.Closed)
{
  m_cnn.Open();
}
m_reader = m_Cmd.ExecuteReader();

To close the data connection

Right-click the gray area outside the design surface to select the report and select Properties.
In the Properties window that appears, click the Events icon to view the available events for the report.
In the events list, double-click the ReportEnd event. This creates an event-handling method for the ReportEnd event.

Add the following code to the handler.

To write the code in Visual Basic

Visual Basic.NET code. Paste inside the ReportEnd event.	Copy Code
m_reader.Close() m_cnn.Close()

To write the code in C#

C# code. Paste inside the ReportEnd event.	Copy Code
m_reader.Close(); m_cnn.Close();

To create a fields collection

Right-click the gray area around the design surface to select the report and select Properties.
In the Properties window that appears, click the Events icon to view the available events for the report.
In the events list, double-click DataInitialize event. This creates an event-handling method for the report's DataInitialize event.

Add code to the handler to add fields to the report's fields collection.

To write the code in Visual Basic.NET

Visual Basic.NET code. Paste inside the DataInitialize event.	Copy Code
Fields.Add("CategoryName") Fields.Add("ProductName") Fields.Add("UnitsInStock") Fields.Add("Description")

To write the code in C#

C# code. Paste inside the DataInitialize event.	Copy Code
Fields.Add("CategoryName"); Fields.Add("ProductName"); Fields.Add("UnitsInStock"); Fields.Add("Description");

To populate the fields

Right-click the gray area around the design surface to select the report and select Properties.
In the Properties window that appears, click the Events icon to view the available events for the report.
In the events list, double-click the FetchData event. This creates an event-handling method for the report's FetchData event.

Add the following code to the handler to retrieve information to populate the report fields.

To write the code in Visual Basic.NET

Visual Basic.NET code. Paste inside the FetchData event.	Copy Code
Try m_reader.Read() Me.Fields("CategoryName").Value = m_reader("CategoryName") Me.Fields("ProductName").Value = m_reader("ProductName") Me.Fields("UnitsInStock").Value = m_reader("UnitsInStock") Me.Fields("Description").Value = m_reader("Description") eArgs.EOF = False Catch ex As Exception eArgs.EOF = True End Try

To write the code in C#

C# code. Paste inside the FetchData event.	Copy Code
try { m_reader.Read(); Fields["CategoryName"].Value = m_reader["CategoryName"].ToString(); Fields["ProductName"].Value = m_reader["ProductName"].ToString(); Fields["UnitsInStock"].Value = m_reader["UnitsInStock"].ToString(); Fields["Description"].Value = m_reader["Description"].ToString(); eArgs.EOF = false; } catch { eArgs.EOF = true; }

Tip: In order to view the added data at runtime, add controls to your report and assign their DataField property to the name of the fields you added in code while creating a field collection.

Caution: Do not access the Fields collection outside the DataInitialize and FetchData events. Accessing the Fields collection outside of these events is not supported, and has unpredictable results.

To use the IEnumerable data source

Right-click the design surface and select View Code.

Add the following code inside the class declaration of the report:

To create a data source in Visual Basic

Visual Basic.NET code. Paste inside the class declaration of the report.	Copy Code
Private datasource1 As IEnumerator(Of String) = Nothing Dim list As List(Of String)= Nothing

Visual Basic.NET code. Paste inside the class declaration of the report.	Copy Code
Private Function GetIEnumerableData() As IEnumerable(Of String) For i As Integer = 1 To 10 list.Add(String.Format("TestData_{0}", i.ToString())) Next Return list End Function

To create a data source in C#

On the design surface, right-click the gray area around the design surface to select the report and select Properties.
In the Properties window that appears, click the Events icon to view the available events for the report.
Double-click the DataInitialize event. This creates an event-handling method for the report's DataInitialize event.

C# code. Paste inside the class declaration of the report.	Copy Code
private IEnumerator<string> datasource = null;

C# code. Paste inside the class declaration of the report.	Copy Code
private IEnumerable<string> GetIEnumerableData() { for (int i = 1; i <= 10; i++) { yield return string.Format("TestData_{0}", i.ToString()); } }

Add the following code to the handler to add fields to the report's Fields collection.

To add fields in Visual Basic

Visual Basic.NET code. Paste inside the DataInitialize event.	Copy Code
Me.Fields.Add("TestField") Me.list = New List(Of String) datasource1 = GetIEnumerableData().GetEnumerator()

To add fields in C#

Repeat steps 3 and 4 to open the events list in the property window.
Double-click the FetchData event. This creates an event-handling method for the report's FetchData event.

C# code. Paste inside the DataInitialize event.	Copy Code
this.Fields.Add("TestField"); datasource = GetIEnumerableData().GetEnumerator();

Add code to the handler to retrieve information to populate the report fields.

To populate fields in Visual Basic

Visual Basic.NET code. Paste inside the FetchData event.	Copy Code
If datasource1.MoveNext() Then Me.Fields("TestField").Value = datasource1.Current eArgs.EOF = False Else eArgs.EOF = True End If

To populate fields in C#

C# code. Paste inside the FetchData event.	Copy Code
if (datasource.MoveNext()) { this.Fields["TestField"].Value = datasource.Current; eArgs.EOF = false; } else eArgs.EOF = true;

Tip: In order to view the added data at runtime, add controls to your report and assign their DataField property to the name of the fields you added in code while creating a field collection.