Composite and nested reports

Report controls can be referenced in the Detail section of export templates as children of an element.

NoteNested reports supported for XML export only Import does not support nested reports. If you attempt to import data in any format, including XML, CSV, DBF, and TXT, that contains a nested report, the nested report is not imported and the import may fail with errors.

Composite reports

For composite reports that use the Composite presentation style, the default template has elements that reference each of its nested reports.

If a composite DataWindow contains two reports that have columns with identical names, you must use the procedure that follows if you want to generate an XML document with a DTD or schema. If you do not follow the procedure, you will receive a parsing error such as “Element ‘identical_column_name’ has already been declared.”

  1. Create a template in the first report and select this template in the Use Template list on the Data Export property page.

  2. Create a template in the second report.

  3. If any element name is used in the template in the first report, change it to another name in the template in the second report.

  4. Select the template for the second report in the Use Template list.

  5. Generate the XML document.

These steps are necessary because you cannot use a given element name more than once in a valid DTD or schema.

Nested reports

For report controls added to the detail band of a base report that is related to the inserted report with retrieval arguments or criteria, the report control is available to the export template in two ways:

When you export XML using a template that has a reference to a report control, the export template assigned to the nested report with the Use Template property is used, if it exists, to expand the XML for the nested report. If no template is specified for the nested report, the default template is used.

The relationship between the nested report and the base report, for example a Master/Detail relationship, is reflected in the exported XML.