Hi-
I hope this is easy, because i want to do it a lot...basically i want a report to be able to change the data source of a field as it is moving through data.

In other words, while reading the records, i want the data itself to tell me where to find the actual information that will be printed:

Record1: db.substfield="{db.account_name}"
Record2: db.substfield="{@myformula}"
Record3: db.substfield="{?someparameter}"
etc...

so when it prints, when it finds the db.substfield textbox on the report, it prints whatever is in each of the contents of db.substfield, not the literal text, so i get 3 different data sources for each of the above records

Hope that makes sense...It's like i want a pointer to the data in substfield evaluated, not the data itself.

Thanks!

thanks, that's what i was thinking - how could you trigger Crystal to view the field as something other than a string or number. maybe a macro code or something? i was thinking something along the lines of a whileprintingrecords formula, but im not familiar with that. if its a complicated formula that i can repeat easily, that would work too


Edited by jxwalter - 04 Jun 2013 at 12:29pm

that might work - theres only a limited number of fields that might be present. the immediate goal is to simply be able to create a cover page on a report that will say whatever the search reports criteria, in plain english...

field_descript="Start Date"
field_operator=">="
field_value="{?Start_Date})

would yield on the report:
{table.field_descript} + {table.field_operator} + {@calculated_field_value}
"Start Date >= 5/1/2013" when the report is run.

The idea is that i can be fully flexible in generating a user friendly criteria statement that might have 4 or so criteria records, and i can substitute live data into any number of reports.

thanks for the suggestion, will try tomorrow


Edited by jxwalter - 04 Jun 2013 at 5:39pm