Mastering Business Analysis with Crystal Reports 9 (Wordware Applications Library)
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The structure of a function begins with the function name. The function name is then followed by an opening parenthesis, the arguments for the function (separated by commas), and a closing parenthesis. Figure C-1 displays an example of a function structure:
| Note | In Figure C-1, the curly brackets surrounding the Orders.Order Date field designate a database field. Refer to the following table for a summary of reserved characters and the types of arguments they represent. This information was presented in Chapter10. |
| Reserved Character | Name | Description |
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| { } | Curly brackets | Used to contain the report objects (such as the database or formula fields). For example: {Employee.First Name} |
| [ ] | Square brackets | Used to create computational formulas. Another common use for them is to return the character of a string field. For example, {Employee.First Name}[1] returns the first character of this string field. |
| ( ) | Parentheses | Used with operators to contain the different parts of a formula and define the order the calculations should take place. |
| . | Period | Separates the table name from the database field. For example: {Employee.Last Name} |
| "" | Quotation marks | Used to surround text that you wish to display within your formulas. For example, "USA" would display the text USA within your report. |
| , | Comma | Used to separate multiple parameters within a formula. |
| @ | Formula | Designates formula fields. For example: {@Name_of_Formula} |
| ? | Parameter | Designates parameter fields. For example: {?Name_of_Parameter) |
| # | Running total | Designates running total field. For example: {#Name of Running Total} |
| ∑ | Summary | Designates a summary field. For example: {∑Name_of_Summary_Field} |
| % | SQL expression | Designates an SQL Expression field. For example: {%Name_of_SQL_Expression} |
The following sections summarize the different functions available within Crystal Reports.
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