Oracle® Reports Building Reports 10g Release (10.1.2) B13895-01 July 2005 Oracle Reports Building Reports, 10g Release (10.1.2) B13895-01 Copyright © 2003, 2005, Oracle All rights reserved Primary Author: Ingrid Snedecor Contributors: Ellen Gravina, Vinayak Hegde, Rohit Marwaha, Ratheesh Pai, Vinodkumar Pandurangan, Rajesh Ramachandran, Vishal Sharma, Navneet Singh, Puvanenthiran Subbaraj, Philipp Weckerle, Panna Hegde, Pravin Prabhakar The Programs (which include both the software and documentation) contain proprietary information; they are provided under a license agreement containing restrictions on use and disclosure and are also protected by copyright, patent, and other intellectual and industrial property laws Reverse engineering, disassembly, or decompilation of the Programs, except to the extent required to obtain interoperability with other independently created software or as specified by law, is prohibited The information contained in this document is subject to change 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licensing restrictions set forth in the applicable Oracle license agreement, and, to the extent applicable, the additional rights set forth in FAR 52.227-19, Commercial Computer Software—Restricted Rights (June 1987) Oracle Corporation, 500 Oracle Parkway, Redwood City, CA 94065 The Programs are not intended for use in any nuclear, aviation, mass transit, medical, or other inherently dangerous applications It shall be the licensee's responsibility to take all appropriate fail-safe, backup, redundancy and other measures to ensure the safe use of such applications if the Programs are used for such purposes, and we disclaim liability for any damages caused by such use of the Programs Oracle, JD Edwards, PeopleSoft, and Retek are registered trademarks of Oracle Corporation and/or its affiliates Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners The Programs may provide links to Web sites and access to content, products, and services from third parties Oracle is not responsible for the availability of, or any content provided on, third-party Web sites You bear all risks associated with the use of such content If you choose to purchase any products or services from a third party, the relationship is directly between you and the third party Oracle is not responsible for: (a) the quality of third-party products or services; or (b) fulfilling any of the terms of the agreement with the third party, including delivery of products or services and warranty obligations related to purchased products or services Oracle is not responsible for any loss or damage of any sort that you may incur from dealing with any third party Contents Preface xxv Audience xxv Documentation Accessibility xxv Related Documentation xxvi Conventions xxvi Accessing the Example Reports xxvi Accessing the Data Sources xxvii Basic Concepts 1.1 1.1.1 1.1.2 1.2 1.2.1 1.2.1.1 1.2.1.2 1.2.2 1.3 1.3.1 1.3.2 1.3.3 1.3.4 1.3.5 1.3.6 1.3.7 1.3.7.1 1.3.7.2 1.4 1.4.1 1.4.2 1.4.3 1.4.4 1.5 1.5.1 1.5.2 Reports Builder 1-1 About Reports Builder 1-1 About this release 1-2 Reports 1-2 About reports 1-2 Creating a new report using the Report Wizard 1-3 Creating a new report manually 1-3 About Web reports 1-3 Report Styles 1-5 About tabular reports 1-5 About group above reports 1-5 About group left reports 1-5 About form-like reports 1-6 About form letter reports 1-6 About mailing label reports 1-6 About matrix reports 1-6 Matrix data model 1-7 Matrix layout 1-10 Wizards 1-11 About the Report Wizard 1-12 About the Report Block Wizard 1-12 About the Data Wizard 1-12 About the Graph Wizard 1-13 The Object Navigator 1-15 About the Object Navigator 1-15 About Object Navigator views 1-16 iii 1.6 The Report Editor 1.6.1 About the Report Editor 1.6.2 About the Data Model view 1.6.3 About the Paper Layout view 1.6.4 About the Paper Design view 1.6.5 About the Paper Parameter Form view 1.6.6 About the Web Source view 1.6.7 About the tool palette and toolbar 1.7 Data Model Objects 1.7.1 About queries 1.7.2 About groups 1.7.3 About database columns 1.7.4 About data links 1.7.5 About Query Builder 1.8 Layout Objects 1.8.1 About frames 1.8.2 About repeating frames 1.8.3 About frame and repeating frame sizing 1.8.4 About fields 1.8.5 About boilerplate objects 1.9 Parameter Form Objects 1.9.1 About parameters 1.9.2 About Parameter Form fields 1.9.3 About Parameter Form boilerplate 1.9.4 About Parameter Forms for Web reports 1.10 The Property Inspector 1.10.1 About the Property Inspector 1.10.1.1 About making multiple selections in the Property Inspector 1.11 Runtime Views 1.11.1 About the Runtime Parameter Form 1.11.2 About the Previewer 1.12 Executables 1-16 1-16 1-16 1-17 1-17 1-18 1-19 1-20 1-20 1-20 1-23 1-24 1-24 1-26 1-26 1-27 1-27 1-27 1-28 1-29 1-30 1-30 1-31 1-32 1-32 1-33 1-33 1-33 1-34 1-34 1-34 1-35 Advanced Concepts 2.1 Reports 2-1 2.1.1 About report titles 2-1 2.1.2 About report sectioning and sections 2-2 2.1.3 About the report unit of measurement 2-3 2.1.4 About the report dimensions 2-3 2.1.5 About fonts in reports 2-4 2.1.6 About conditional formatting 2-4 2.1.7 About nested matrix reports 2-5 2.1.8 About matrix with group reports 2-5 2.2 Web Reports 2-6 2.2.1 About JavaServer Pages (JSPs) and servlets 2-7 2.2.1.1 Using JSPs in Oracle Reports 2-7 2.2.1.2 Opening or running an encoded JSP-based Web report 2-8 iv 2.2.1.3 Embedding a character set in a JSP file dynamically 2-8 2.2.2 About previewing JSP-based Web reports 2-9 2.2.3 About Web links for HTML output 2-11 2.2.4 About Web links for PDF output 2-12 2.2.5 About hyperlinks 2-13 2.2.6 About graph hyperlinks 2-13 2.2.7 About hyperlink destinations 2-13 2.2.8 About bookmarks 2-13 2.2.9 About application command line links 2-13 2.2.10 About before and after escapes 2-14 2.2.11 About style sheets 2-15 2.3 Data Model Objects 2-16 2.3.1 About summary columns 2-16 2.3.2 About formula columns 2-16 2.3.3 About placeholder columns 2-17 2.3.4 About referencing columns and parameters 2-17 2.3.4.1 About bind references 2-17 2.3.4.2 About lexical references 2-18 2.3.4.3 Differences between bind and lexical references 2-22 2.3.5 About non-linkable queries 2-22 2.3.6 About links versus groups 2-22 2.3.7 About matrix objects 2-24 2.4 Layout Objects 2-26 2.4.1 About layout objects 2-26 2.4.2 About layout defaulting 2-27 2.4.3 About images 2-28 2.4.4 About anchors 2-29 2.4.4.1 Implicit anchoring algorithm 2-32 2.4.5 About changing colors and patterns 2-34 2.4.6 About resizing objects 2-35 2.4.7 About moving and layering objects in the Paper Layout view 2-35 2.5 Parameter Form Objects 2-36 2.5.1 About Parameter Form HTML extensions 2-36 2.6 PL/SQL 2-37 2.6.1 About the PL/SQL Editor 2-37 2.6.2 About the Stored PL/SQL Editor 2-37 2.6.3 About the Syntax Palette 2-38 2.6.4 About program units 2-38 2.6.5 About stored program units 2-39 2.6.6 About external PL/SQL libraries 2-39 2.6.7 About attached libraries 2-40 2.6.8 About formulas 2-40 2.6.9 About group filters 2-41 2.6.10 About REF CURSOR queries 2-43 2.6.11 About DML and DDL 2-45 2.6.12 About built-in packages 2-45 2.6.12.1 About the Reports Builder built-in package (SRW) 2-46 v time format masks, 3-77 time series calculations report, 28-1 time/date stamps, 3-68 title adding to report, 3-15 report, about, 2-1 template, 3-109 TOC creating a simple table of contents, 35-4 creating multilevel, 36-2 tool palette about, 1-20 TOOL_ENV built-in package, 2-47 TOOL_ERR built-in package, 2-47 TOOL_RES built-in package, 2-47 toolbar about, 1-20 Tools built-in package, 2-46 TRACE function, 3-133 tracing report distribution, 3-133 report execution, 3-133 TRACE function, 3-133 trailer page creating object in, 3-92 Trailer Section, 3-99 translating report to other languages, 3-17 trigger about, 2-48 database, creating, 3-120 debug, setting, 3-127 format, creating, 3-121 report, creating, 3-120 report, deleting, 3-120 tutorial, 3-3 U uiscreenprint.txt, 3-47 unit of measurement, 2-3 UNIX, 3-47 uppercase Parameter Form input, 3-106 URL for image, 3-54 linking image to, 2-12, 3-84 user exits, 2-81 user parameter about, 1-31 creating, 3-101 Vertical Gap, 3-97 Vertical Interfield, 3-97 Vertical Panels per Page property, 2-4 vertical spacing adding, 6-5 viewing output, 3-41 viewing region, splitting, 3-44 W Web browser displaying report output, 3-43 printing report, 3-45 Web links adding to paper-based report, 3-20 Web report, 41-1 about, 1-3, 2-6 Parameter Form, 1-32, 3-103 previewing, 2-9 vs paper-based, 2-62 Web Source view about, 1-19 WEBSERVER_DOCROOT, 2-10 white space adding, 8-4, 10-6 width column, changing, 3-96 Width property, 2-3 wizard glossary, Glossary-10 wrapped break report, 15-1 wrapping text, 3-66 X XML, 3-87 filtering data, 44-12 output, 2-61, 3-35 XML data source building an XML query, 44-7 XML query building, 44-7 XML Query tool, 3-50 V validating parameters at runtime, 3-102 validation trigger about, 2-51 using, 3-102 variables examining or changing, 3-132 Index-11 Index-12 .. .Oracle Reports Building Reports, 10g Release (10.1.2) B13895-01 Copyright © 2003, 2005, Oracle All rights reserved Primary Author: Ingrid Snedecor... 1.5.2 Reports Builder 1-1 About Reports Builder 1-1 About this release 1-2 Reports 1-2 About reports 1-2 Creating a new report. .. new report using the Report Wizard 1-3 Creating a new report manually 1-3 About Web reports 1-3 Report Styles 1-5 About tabular reports