Preface

The examples in this book are intended to help you learn about Oracle9i Reports and its features.

Intended audience

This book is intended for anyone who uses Oracle9i Reports to build reports. The needs of both novice and advanced users are addressed. Each chapter contains step-by-step instructions to build a report from start to finish. Each report that you build will demonstrate how to use many of the powerful features in Reports Builder.

Structure

This book contains the following chapters:

Table 0-1 Summary of Manual Contents

Chapter	Description
Chapter 1, "Building a Report with a Barcode"	Describes how to build a report that uses the barcode Java bean. Also describes how to use the Java Importer to import a Java class for a paper report, and use a Java bean with a JSP-based Web report.
Chapter 2, "Bursting and Distributing a Report"	Describes how to set up an existing paper report to burst on a section, then distribute to multiple e-mail addresses.
Chapter 3, "Building a Paper Report with Ref Cursors"	Describes how to define a ref cursor query, which uses PL/SQL to fetch data.
Chapter 4, "Building a Report with an XML Pluggable Data Source"	Describes how to build a report by combining an XML data source and a SQL-based data source in a single query.
Chapter 5, "Building a Report with a Text Pluggable Data Source"	Describes how to build a paper report using a text pluggable data source.
Chapter 6, "Building a Report Using Express Data"	Describes how to build a paper report using Oracle Express as a data source

We are continually building new examples of how to use Oracle9i Reports. For the latest examples, documentation, and demonstrations, visit the Oracle Technology Network (http://otn.oracle.com/products/reports/), then click Getting Started with Oracle9i Reports.

Other resources

You can find more information about using Oracle9i Reports on the Oracle Technology Network, the Reports Builder online help, and Publishing Reports to the Web with Oracle9iAS Reports Services. The latest information is available on the Oracle Technology Network (http://otn.oracle.com/products/reports/), under Getting Started with Oracle9i Reports.

The Oracle Technology Network

The Oracle Technology Network is located at http://otn.oracle.com. You can access general information about the product, as well as delve into more detail by navigating to Getting Started with Oracle9i Reports. The Getting Started Web site provides you with up-to-date examples, as well as the latest white papers and demonstrations. Here, you can access the latest version of the Building Reports with Oracle9i Reports and Publishing Reports to the Web with Oracle9iAS Reports Services manuals.

Oracle9i Reports Tutorial

The tutorial describes how to build a simple JSP-based Web report with a graph, and how to generate a paper report from the same data model. You can access this manual via the Getting Started with Oracle9i Reports Web site. Simply go to the Web site, click Index, and navigate to the Oracle9i Reports Tutorial.

Reports Builder online help

You can access the Reports Builder online help by clicking a Help button on any dialog box, as well as choosing Help > Help Contents.

Publishing Reports to the Web with Oracle9iAS Reports Services

You can access this manual on the Oracle9iAS product CD, as well as on the Oracle Technology Network. Simply go to the Web site, click Index, and navigate to the Publishing Reports to the Web with Oracle9iAS Reports Services. This book describes how to set up Oracle9iAS Reports Services to perform the tasks you require. If you are setting up your Reports server for distribution, for example, you should refer to this manual for further information.