Apply alternating row colors to your report Filter your XML data using a group filter

45-14 Oracle Reports Users Guide to Building Reports Figure 45–7 Data Model with Group Hierarchy 2. Save your report. You have now created a group hierarchy that sorts the data in your report.

45.3 Run Your Report to Paper

To run your paper report: 1. In the Object Navigator, make sure your report inventoryreport_xml_your_ initials .rdf is selected. 2. Click the Run Paper Layout button in the toolbar to run your report to paper. Notice how the Parameter Form now displays, with the initial value of 50. 3. Your report displays in the Paper Design view, and should look something like this: Note: Notice in the above image that a green circle displays above G_WAREHOUSE_ID1. This circle indicates that a group filter has been created for the group. Building a Report with an XML Pluggable Data Source 45-15 Figure 45–8 Final Paper Design view of the XML PDS example report

45.4 Summary

Congratulations You have successfully used an XML data source for a paper report. You now know how to: ■ create a SQL query from scratch. ■ use the Data Wizard to create an XML query. ■ create a data link between a SQL query and an XML query. ■ create a layout for your report using the Report Wizard. ■ apply alternating row colors to your report using format triggers and procedures. ■ filter your XML data using a group filter and hierarchy. For more information on any of the wizards, views, or properties used in this example, refer to the Oracle Reports online Help, which is available in Oracle Reports Builder or hosted on the Oracle Technology Network OTN, as described in Section 4.1.1, Using the Oracle Reports online Help . 45-16 Oracle Reports Users Guide to Building Reports Building a Report with a Text Pluggable Data Source 46-1 46 Building a Report with a Text Pluggable Data Source In this chapter, you will learn about reports that include data from a Text pluggable data source PDS, which is provided with Oracle Reports. By following the steps in this chapter, you can generate the report output shown in Figure 46–1 . Figure 46–1 Report output using a Text PDS Concepts ■ The information you must publish is often derived from data in various corporate data sources. These data sources may be SQL-based relational databases or non-SQL-based, such as character-delimited text. Often, you must combine data from one or more of these data sources to publish meaningful information. For example, you may need to combine data that exists in a relational database with data from a multidimensional database to compare trends and performance. ■ Oracle Reports enables you to leverage capabilities, such as aggregation, summarization, formatting, and scheduling, on data from any data source. You can leverage the pluggable data source PDS architecture to connect to your own 46-2 Oracle Reports Users Guide to Building Reports data source, as well as to the data sources available with Oracle Reports XML, JDBC, and Text. ■ For more information on pluggable data sources, refer to the Oracle Reports online Help. If your data source cannot use an existing PDS, the PDS API enables you to write your own PDS and incorporate it into Oracle Reports to access your own unique data sources. The API is documented in Oracle Reports Java API Reference, available on the Oracle Technology Network Oracle Reports Documentation page http:www.oracle.comtechnologydocumentationreports.html . Example Scenario In this example, you have downloaded the US Census Bureau data in CSV comma-separated values format and want to generate a report. You will learn how to use character-delimited text as a data source to create a paper report. As you build this example report, you will: ■ Set Up the textpds.conf File to Configure Reports Builder to recognize your text file as a pluggable data source. ■ Use the Report Wizard to Create a Report based on the text data source. To see a sample report that uses a Text PDS, open the examples folder named text_ pds, then open census_report.rdf. For details on how to open it, see Accessing the Example Reports in the Preface. The example files used in this chapter are listed and described in Table 46–1 .

46.1 Prerequisites for This Example

To build the example in this chapter, you must have the example files we have provided see Example Scenario , above.

46.2 Set Up the textpds.conf File

Before you can use a text file as a data source, you must set up the Text PDS configuration file textpds.conf with your text files format information. With this data definition in the configuration file, Oracle Reports Builder can recognize your text file as a valid data source. To set up your textpds.conf: 1. In a text editor, such as Notepad, open the file textpds.conf, located in the ORACLE_HOME reportsconf directory. Table 46–1 Example report files File Description text_pds\census_report.rdf The finished RDF for your report. text_pds\census_report.pdf A PDF version of your finished report. text_pds\census_csv.txt The character-delimited data downloaded from the US Census Bureau Web site. text_pds\config.txt Code for the textpds.conf file. Note: You must edit your configuration file before you launch or restart Reports Builder for the changes to take effect.