Here's a question I hadn't previously considered:
Report expressions can be cumbersome when you need to apply a lot of logic, or dig down through levels of tables to get at some data. These tasks are often quite simple using standard program syntax and multiple-table SELECTs. Why wouldn't I want to use the before generate eep to employ code and multiple-table SELECTs rather than build a long list of report expressions? Example: A shipment is going to a customer. A customer is comprised of a sold-to and a ship-to, each of which has a name, one address line, an optional second address line, city, state (may be null), zip code (may be null) and country. BUT, instead of going to the ship to it may be consigned to a third party which has all of the above fields as well. To print the ship order (a pick list) we need to retrieve the data for the sold to and ship to, and optionally the consignee. All three will print in the page header if the consignee exists. If the second address line is present, each of those groupings will create four lines on the report unless the shipment is export in which case it will be five lines. But I want to print all three groupings on the same 4 or 5 lines, arranged across the page. Now, this can be (and has been) done with report expressions. I'm not going to be able to calculate all these things in advance of printing the report since the report may be printing multiple ship orders at the same time. The code to figure out each of the above is quite simple by comparison. Why wouldn't I simply locate that code in the page header band on-before-generate eep rather than creating probably 30+ report expressions to do the same job? Emmitt Dove Manager, Converting Applications Development Evergreen Packaging, Inc. [email protected] (203) 214-5683 m (203) 643-8022 o (203) 643-8086 f [email protected]
