Writing the Genero BDL report program

Overview
Genero BDL is used to write the code for a 4gl file that retrieves the data, often from a database, and outputs it to a report.

Tips
Tips for writing a BDL report program.

Creating a simple report
This example BDL program (SimpleReport.4gl) uses data from the officestore database to create a report. There are more complex examples in the Reports project provided as a demo with Genero Report Writer.

Fetching report data
You can obtain the data for the report in several ways.

Output options
Various output formats are available for a report, to include SVG, PDF and image files. The output will be sent to the destination specified by the output options.

Generate a data schema from a Genero BDL report program
After you write or modify a Genero report program, you must generate the data schema (rdd) file. This file is used by the Genero Report Designer to provide a list of data objects for use in the report design.

Allowing the user to select output options
Users can choose the format to see the report output.

Running a Genero ASCII report using GRW (Compatibility Report)
This type of report is referred to as a compatibility report.

Sub reports
Sub reports allow one report to be called from another.