Release 10.1A: OpenEdge Reporting:
Report Builder Deployment

Creating the Report Engine table

Before you can use the table interface to generate reports, you must create the Report Engine table in which to store the report parameters. Table 4–1 lists the field names and data types that you must specify when you create the Report Engine table.

Table 4–1: Required field names and data types

Field name	Contents	Data type
RB-REPORT-LIBRARY	Report library name.	CHARACTER
RB-REPORT-NAME	Report name.	CHARACTER
RB-DB-CONNECTION	Database connection override string.	CHARACTER
RB-INCLUDE-RECORDS	Filter flag.	CHARACTER
RB-FILTER	Filter expression.	CHARACTER
RB-MEMO-FILE	Memo filename.	CHARACTER
RB-PRINT-DESTINATION	Print destination.	CHARACTER
RB-PRINTER-NAME	Printer name.	CHARACTER
RB-PRINTER-PORT	Printer port.	CHARACTER
RB-OUTPUT-FILE	Output filename.	CHARACTER
RB-NUMBER-COPIES	Number of copies.	INTEGER
RB-BEGIN-PAGE	Beginning page number.	INTEGER
RB-END-PAGE	Ending page number.	INTEGER
RB-TEST-PATTERN	Test pattern flag.	LOGICAL
RB-WINDOW-TITLE	Window title.	CHARACTER
RB-DISPLAY-ERRORS	Display error flag.	LOGICAL
RB-DISPLAY-STATUS	Display status flag.	LOGICAL
RB-OTHER-PARAMETERS	User-defined parameters.	CHARACTER

Notice that each Report Engine field contains one predefined Report Engine parameter. In addition to the Report Engine fields listed in Table 4–1, you can optionally specify the fields described in Table 4–2.

Table 4–2: Optional field names and data types 

Field name	Contents	Data type
RB-TAG	Which reports to generate based on the Report Tag (-rbtag) parameter value.	CHARACTER
RB-STATUS	Status of the report generation.	CHARACTER

You can also specify other fields in the Report Engine table. However, Report Engine ignores any fields other than the ones listed in Table 4–1 and Table 4–2.

Progress Software provides a database definition file (%DLC%\bin\rbreport.df) containing loadable definitions for the Report Engine table interface. You can use this definition file to create a Report Engine table.

If any of the required Report Engine fields is missing when you invoke Report Engine, it will discontinue processing all of the reports. If the command-line parameters allow Report Engine to report errors, it also returns an error message to the report status file or the RB-STATUS field. See Chapter 2, "Report Engine Administration," for a complete description of the report status file.

Note: In the provided database definition file, the Report Engine table is defined as a hidden table. This means that it will not appear in any table lists unless you specify to display hidden tables.