How to get list of columns in report definition, but not in dictionary.

[mvines]

Hi all. First, thanks for putting out such a useful product. It's really shortened our delivery time line.

In my implementation of your report engine, I allow our customers to define their dictionary through a data set prior to designing a new report. I also allow them to modify that reports dataset later on if they choose. In testing, I have come across a scenario where a user creates a dataset with 5 fields, uses all 5 fields from the dictionary on the report, and then modifies their dataset to remove one of those fields. They then should modify their report to no longer use that field, however, they may not. Currently this throws an exception. Which is acceptable. I do wish that it was not of type System.Exception, but rather a custom exception that would allow me to catch it explicitly and get a list of the report compilation errors. But what I would really like, is a method that can check the fields in the report definition, and ensure that they are in the dictionary. And a method that returns all of those fields. Is this something that is currently possible? Did I just miss it in the docs? Currently, If I wanted to retrieve a list of fields in a reports definition that were not in the dictionary before or after compilation, how would I retrieve them?

Thanks once again for your time.

Matthew Vines

[Edward]

Hi

Thank you very much for the nice words.

You can retrieve all columns which the mySource contains as follows:

report.Dictionary.Connect(false);
mySource.SynchronizeColumns();
report.Compile();

Thank you.