Report sectioning enables you to define multiple layouts in the same report, each with a different target audience, output format, page layout, page size, or orientation. You can define up to three report sections, each with a body area and a margin area: the names of the sections are Header, Main, and Trailer. By default, a report is defined in the Main section. In the other sections, you can define different layouts, rather than creating multiple separate reports. If you wish, you can use the margin and body of the Header and Trailer sections to create a Header and Trailer page for your reports.
In the Object Navigator, the report sections are exposed in the Object Navigator under the Paper Layout node as Header Section, Main Section, and Trailer Section.
You can specify the order in which the three sections of a report (Header,
Main, and Trailer) are formatted using SRW.SET_FORMAT_ORDER
or the Format Order of
Sections property. This capability allows Oracle Reports to format any section
first to create information that is only known at the time of formatting, such
as page numbers, then use that information in the formatting of another section.
As an example, this property can be used to create a table of contents. For
an example of using SRW.SET_FORMAT_ORDER
for this purpose, see
the chapters "Building a Paper Report with a Simple Table of Contents and
Index" and "Building a Paper Report with a Multilevel Table of Contents"
in the Oracle Reports Building Reports manual, available on the Oracle
Technology Network Oracle Reports Documentation page (http://www.oracle.com/technology/documentation/reports.html
).
For an example of using section-level distribution, see the chapter "Bursting and Distributing a Report" in the Oracle Reports Building Reports manual. This chapter covers defining distribution of a single section to multiple destinations, using the Repeat On property and a sample distribution XML file. For information about advanced section-level distribution and creating your own distribution XML file, see the chapter "Creating Advanced Distributions" in the Oracle Application Server Reports Services Publishing Reports to the Web manual.
You can use sectioning and distribution to publish your report output in HTML, and also send a PostScript version to the printer.
You can send an executive summary of the report to senior management, and also e-mail detailed breakdowns to individual managers. In this example, a single report with two report sections needs to be created: a portrait-sized summary section and a landscape-sized detail section. Use the Repeat On property to associate the detail section with a data model group that lists the managers and then alter the destination on each instance of the data model group to send the output to the appropriate managers.
Creating a default layout for a section
Displaying a section layout view
Copyright © 1984, 2005, Oracle. All rights reserved.