Appendix 1. Using ReportBuilder with the tiOPF

This chapter was provided by Andrew Denton adenton@q-range.com after a discussion on the mailing list about reporting techniques and the tiOPF.
The following code is taken from a base form in one of my applications that utilises printing a tiListViewPlus (a normal tiListView should work fine also) using Report Builder. Create a form with the following components: -

A tiListViewPlus (named lvTrans)
A TppReport (named rptBase)
A TppJITPipeline (named plData)

Set the ReportUnits property of the report to be utMillimeters – this is important for the field placement later on. You will also need to attach your tiListView to a TPerObjList descendant. I'm assuming that everyone knows how to do this! Next, create two Private methods in your form declaration as follows: -

Function plCheckEOF : Boolean;
Function plGetFieldValue(aFieldName : String) : Variant;

These are the required event handlers for the pipeline that we need to tell it how to provide the data. Hit CTRL+SHIFT+C for code completion - we will come to these in detail shortly, but we'll leave them blank for now. We also need some kind of UI component to enable the user to request a report, I generally use an action list, but to keep things simple we’ll settle for dropping a button on the form. Name the button btnPrint and double-click it to bring up its OnClick event handler. Now comes the coding part! Make your event handler look like this:

Procedure TfrmTransBase.btnPrintClick(Sender : TObject);
Const
  FieldSpacing = 10;
Var
  I, OldPos : Integer;
  MyType : TppDataType;
  CurXPos : Integer;

Function GetReportFieldSize(FieldType : TppDataType) : Integer;
Begin
  Result := 5;
  Case FieldType Of
    dtDateTime : Result := 100;
    dtInteger : Result := 50;
    dtString : Result := 120;
    dtCurrency : Result := 60;
  End; { Case }
End;
   
Procedure AddReportField(Const pFieldName : String; FieldNo : 
  Integer; FieldType : TppDataType);
Var
  lblField1 : TppDBText;
Begin
  lblField1 := TppDBText.Create(Self);
  lblField1.Band := rptBase.DetailBand;
  lblField1.spLeft := CurXPos;
  lblField1.spTop := 2;
  lblField1.DataPipeline := plData;
  lblField1.AutoSize := False;
  lblField1.DataField := pFieldName;
  lblField1.spWidth := GetReportFieldSize(FieldType);
  If FieldType In [dtCurrency, dtInteger] Then
    lblField1.Alignment := taRightJustify;
  CurXPos := CurXPos + lblField1.spWidth + FieldSpacing;
End;


Procedure AddColumnHeading(Const pHeading : String; 
  FieldNo : Integer; FieldType : TppDataType);
Var
  lblHeading1 : TppLabel;
Begin
  lblHeading1 := TppLabel.Create(Self);
  lblHeading1.Band := rptBase.HeaderBand;
  lblHeading1.spLeft := CurXPos;
  lblHeading1.spTop := 5;
  lblHeading1.AutoSize := False;
  lblHeading1.Caption := pHeading;
  lblHeading1.Font.Style := [fsBold];
  lblHeading1.spWidth := GetReportFieldSize(FieldType);
  If FieldType In [dtCurrency, dtInteger] Then
  lblHeading1.Alignment := taRightJustify;
End;
   
Begin
  // Let's create a report.
  // First we need to interrogate the list view for it's columns so we can 
  // create the fields and add the fields to the report
  CurXPos := 2;
  OldPos := lvTrans.SelectedIndex; // Remember where we were in the list.
  For I := 0 To lvTrans.ListColumns.Count - 1 Do
  Begin
    With lvTrans.ListColumns.Items[I] Do
    Begin
      MyType := dtString;
      Case DataType Of
      lvtkString : MyType := dtString;
      lvtkFloat : MyType := dtCurrency;
      lvtkDateTime : MyType := dtDateTime;
      lvtkInt : MyType := dtInteger;
   End; { Case }
   AddColumnHeading(DisplayLabel, I, MyType);
   // 25 is a temporary hack value for now.
   plData.DefineField(FieldName, MyType, 25); 
   AddReportField(FieldName, I, MyType);
 End;
End; { Loop }

// Now we need to hookup the event handlers to the JIT Pipeline to provide 
// access to the underlying data.
plData.OnCheckEOF := plCheckEOF;
plData.OnGetFieldValue := plGetFieldValue;
// Set the report's title.
lblReportTitle.Caption := 'Q-Bar Quick Report - ' + Caption;
// Prevent annoying listview scrolling when preparing report.
LockWindowUpdate(Self.Handle); 
// Now all that's done we print the report.
  Try
    rptBase.PrintReport;
  Finally
  LockWindowUpdate(0); // Now we're good to go.
End;

If (OldPos <> -1) Then
  lvTrans.PositionCursor(OldPos)
  Else
  lvTrans.PositionCursor(0); // Reset the list view's highlight bar.
End;

Now we’ve coded the main printing routine we need to write the code for the event handlers, which looks something like this:

Function TfrmTransBase.plCheckEOF : Boolean;
Begin
  Result := (plData.RecordIndex >= lvTrans.Items.Count);
End;
   
Function TfrmTransBase.plGetFieldValue(aFieldName : String) : Variant;
Var
  lListColumn : TtiListColumn;
  lColID : Integer;
Begin
  // Need to obtain the value of the property aFieldName from the current 
  // list item. Using PositionCursor isn't ideal but AFAIK it's the only way of 
  // accessing the underlying Object.
  lvTrans.PositionCursor(plData.RecordIndex);
  If (lvTrans.SelectedData <> Nil) Then
  Begin
    lListColumn := lvTrans.ListColumns.FindByFieldName(aFieldName);
    lColID := lListColumn.ID;
    If lListColumn.Derived Then
      Result := lvTrans.Selected.SubItems.Strings[lColID]
    Else
      // The magic of RTTI !!! :)
      Result := GetPropValue(lvTrans.SelectedData, aFieldName)
  End Else
    Result := 'Error';
End;

Compile and run your test project and you should now be able to print a report based on the view presented by a tiListView or tiListViewPlus. Couple this with Form Inheritance and you have all your basic reporting functionality already written. Of course, the routines described here could be improved on - most noticeable is the lack of any kind of totalling on the final report, but it should give you an insight into what can be achieved with these two packages.