ActiveReports 11
Group On Unbound Fields
ActiveReports 11 > ActiveReports User Guide > Samples and Walkthroughs > Walkthroughs > Section Report Walkthroughs > Layout > Group On Unbound Fields
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ActiveReports allows you to set up grouping in unbound reports. When setting up grouping, the group header's DataField property is used to retrieve the grouping data from the database in the same manner as a textbox's DataField property. This walkthrough illustrates how to set up grouping in an unbound report.

This walkthrough is split into the following activities:

Note: This walkthrough uses the Northwind database. By default, in ActiveReports, the Northwind.mdb file is located at [User Documents folder]\GrapeCity Samples\ActiveReports 11\Data\NWIND.mdb.

When you complete this walkthrough you get a layout that looks similar to the following at design time and at run time.

Design-Time Layout

Run-Time Layout

To add an ActiveReport to the Visual Studio project

  1. Create a new Visual Studio project.
  2. From the Project menu, select Add New Item.
  3. In the Add New Item dialog that appears, select ActiveReports 11 Section Report (code-based) and in the Name field, rename the file as rptGroupUnbound.
  4. Click the Add button to open a new section report in the designer.  

See Adding an ActiveReport to a Project for information on adding different report layouts.

To add code to connect the report to a data source

  1. Double-click the gray area below the report. This creates an event-handling method for the report's ReportStart event.
  2. Add code to the handler to:
    • Set the data source connection string
    • Set the data source SQL query
    • Open the connection and retrieve the data with the data reader

The following examples show what the code for the method looks like in Visual Basic.NET and C#.

To write the code in Visual Basic.NET

Visual Basic.NET code. Paste JUST ABOVE the ReportStart event.
Copy Code 
Dim connection As System.Data.OleDb.OleDbConnection
Dim reader As System.Data.OleDb.OleDbDataReader
Visual Basic.NET code. Paste INSIDE the ReportStart event.
Copy Code 
'Create the data connection and change the data source path as necessary 
Dim connectionString As String 
connectionString = "Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data Source=C:\Users\[User Folder]\Documents\GrapeCity Samples\ActiveReports 11\Data\NWIND.mdb" 
connection = New System.Data.OleDb.OleDbConnection(connectionString) 
connection.Open() 
    
Dim sqlString As String 
sqlString = "SELECT * FROM categories INNER JOIN products ON categories.categoryid= products.categoryid ORDER BY categories.CategoryID" 
Dim command As New System.Data.OleDb.OleDbCommand(sqlString, connection) 
'Retrieve data 
reader = command.ExecuteReader()

To write the code in C#

C# code. Paste JUST ABOVE the ReportStart event.
Copy Code 
private System.Data.OleDb.OleDbConnection connection;
private System.Data.OleDb.OleDbDataReader reader;
C# code. Paste INSIDE the ReportStart event.
Copy Code 
//Create the data connection and change the data source path as necessary
string connectionString = @"Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data Source=C:\Users\[User Folder]\Documents\GrapeCity Samples\ActiveReports 11\Data\NWIND.mdb";
connection=new System.Data.OleDb.OleDbConnection(connectionString);
connection.Open();

string sqlString = "SELECT * FROM categories INNER JOIN products ON categories.categoryid = products.categoryid ORDER BY categories.CategoryID";
System.Data.OleDb.OleDbCommand command = new System.Data.OleDb.OleDbCommand(sqlString, connection);   

//Retrieve data
reader = command.ExecuteReader();

To create a layout for the report

  1. On the design surface of the report, right-click and select Insert, then Group Header/Footer to add group header and footer sections.
  2. Select the group header and in the Properties window, set the properties as follows.
    Property Name Property Value
    Name ghCategories
    BackColor Silver
    CanShrink True
    DataField CategoryID
    GroupKeepTogether All
    KeepTogether True
  3. Select the group footer, and in the Properties Window, change the Name property to gfCategories.
  4. Select the Detail section, and in the Properties Window, change the CanShrink property to True.
  5. From the toolbox, drag the following controls to the Group Header section (drag the bottom edge of the section down to display all of the controls) and in the Properties window, set the properties of each control as follows.

    TextBox1

    Property Name Property Value
    DataField CategoryName
    Name txtCategoryName
    Text Category Name
    Location 0, 0 in
    Size 2, 0.2 in
    ForeColor Blue
    BackColor Silver
    Font > Size 12
    Font > Bold True

    TextBox2

    Property Name Property Value
    DataField Description
    Name txtDescription
    Text Description
    Location 0, 0.3 in
    Size 6, 0.2 in

    Label1

    Property Name Property Value
    Name lblProductName
    Text Product Name
    Location 0, 0.6 in
    Font > Bold True

    Label2

    Property Name Property Value
    Name lblUnitsInStock
    Text Units In Stock
    Location 4.4, 0.6 in
    Font > Bold True
    Alignment Right
  6. From the toolbox, drag two Textbox controls to the Detail section and in the Properties window, set the properties of each control as follows.

    TextBox1

    Property Name Property Value
    DataField ProductName
    Name txtProductName
    Text Product Name
    Location 0, 0 in
    Size 4, 0.2 in

    TextBox2

    Property Name Property Value
    DataField UnitsInStock
    Name txtUnitsInStock
    Text Units In Stock
    Location 4.4, 0 in
    Alignment Right

  7. From the toolbox, drag the following controls to the Group Footer section and in the Properties window, set the properties of each control as follows.

    Label

    Property Name Property Value
    DataField TotalLabel
    Name lblTotalLabel
    Location 2, 0 in
    Size 2.4, 0.2 in

    TextBox

    Property Name Property Value
    DataField ProductName
    Name txtTotalItems
    Text Total Items
    Location 4.4, 0 in
    SummaryType SubTotal
    SummaryFunc Count
    SummaryRunning Group
    SummaryGroup ghCategories
    Alignment Right

    Line

    Property Name Property Value
    Name Line1
    LineWeight 3
    X1 1.2
    X2 6.45
    Y1 0
    Y2 0

  8. Right-click the Page Header section and select Delete.

To add fields using the DataInitialize event

Warning: 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 write the code in Visual Basic

  1. Right-click in any section of the design surface of the report, and select View Code to display the code view for the report.
  2. At the top left of the code view of the report, click the drop-down arrow and select (YourReportName Events).
  3. At the top right of the code window, click the drop-down arrow and select DataInitialize. This creates an event-handling method for the report's DataInitialize event.
  4. Add code to the handler to add fields to the report's Fields collection.

The following example shows what the code for the method looks like.

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

To write the code in C#

  1. Click in the gray area below the report to select it.
  2. Click the events icon in the Properties Window to display available events for the report.
  3. Double-click DataInitialize. This creates an event-handling method for the report's DataInitialize event.
  4. Add code to the handler to add fields to the report's Fields collection.

The following example shows what the code for the method looks like.

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

To populate the fields using the FetchData event

To write the code in Visual Basic

  1. At the top left of the code view for the report, click the drop-down arrow and select (YourReportName Events).
  2. At the top right of the code window, click the drop-down arrow and select FetchData. This creates an event-handling method for the report's FetchData event.
  3. Add code to the handler to retrieve information to populate the report fields.

The following example shows what the code for the method looks like.

Visual Basic.NET code. Paste INSIDE the FetchData event.
Copy Code 
Try
   reader.Read()
   Me.Fields("CategoryID").Value = reader("categories.CategoryID")
   Me.Fields("CategoryName").Value = reader("CategoryName")
   Me.Fields("ProductName").Value = reader("ProductName")
   Me.Fields("UnitsInStock").Value = reader("UnitsInStock")
   Me.Fields("Description").Value = reader("Description")
   Me.Fields("TotalLabel").Value = "Total Number of " + reader("CategoryName") + ":"
   eArgs.EOF = False
Catch
   eArgs.EOF = True
End Try

To write the code in C#

  1. Back in design view, click in the gray area below the report to select it.
  2. Click the events icon in the Properties window to display available events for the report.
  3. Double-click FetchData. This creates an event-handling method for the report's FetchData event.
  4. Add code to the handler to retrieve information to populate the report fields.

The following example shows what the code for the method looks like.

C# code. Paste INSIDE the FetchData event.
Copy Code 
try
   {
      reader.Read();
      Fields["CategoryID"].Value = reader["categories.CategoryID"].ToString();
      Fields["CategoryName"].Value = reader["CategoryName"].ToString();
      Fields["ProductName"].Value = reader["ProductName"].ToString();
      Fields["UnitsInStock"].Value = reader["UnitsInStock"].ToString();
      Fields["Description"].Value = reader["Description"].ToString();
      Fields["TotalLabel"].Value = "Total Number of " + reader["CategoryName"].ToString() + ":";
      eArgs.EOF = false;
   }
catch
   {
      eArgs.EOF = true;
   }

To add code to close the connection to the data source

To write the code in Visual Basic

  1. At the top left of the code view for the report, click the drop-down arrow and select (YourReportName Events).
  2. At the top right of the code window, click the drop-down arrow and select ReportEnd. This creates an event-handling method for the report's ReportEnd event.
  3. Add code to the handler to close the connection.
Visual Basic.NET code. Paste INSIDE the ReportEnd event.
Copy Code 
reader.Close() 
connection.Close()

To write the code in C#

  1. Back in design view, click in the gray area below the report to select it.
  2. Click the events icon in the Properties window to display available events for the report.
  3. Double-click ReportEnd. This creates an event-handling method for the report's ReportEnd event.
  4. Add code to the handler to close the connection.

The following example shows what the code for the method looks like.

C# code. Paste INSIDE the ReportEnd event.
Copy Code 
reader.Close();
connection.Close();

To view the report

OR