Report Solution Patterns and Recipes - Professional SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services - page 271

Area Limitation Alternatives

Aggregate functions don't Use a Visual Basic function to return a zero

return zero for summaries on in place of an empty value [for example,

nonexisting values. Our users

=IIF(IsNothing(SUM(Fields!MyField

want to see zeros.

.Value)), 0, SUM(Fields!MyField.Value)) ]
Pass values to a Visual Basic function to convert
null, empty string, or no value to a zero or another
value. [for example, =Code.NullToZero
(Fields!MyField.Value) ]

Standard formatting strings Format properties use the language of regular

don't return values formatted expressions, which are very capable but can be

the way I want to see them. complicated. Conditional regular expressions can

be obtained from a number of online resources
or specialized technical topics. Rather than
modifying the format, create a Visual Basic
function or expression called in the Value
property. This can limit your ability to refer to the
value of this report item in another expression
(this is easy to work around). In related report
items, refer to the Fields expression rather than
this report item, or convert this report item value
back to its native data type.

Rendering Can't embed charts and Create a group on a detail-level field. This

subreports into the detail row effectively makes the group header or footer a

of a table. detail row — which will support more embedded

items. Remove unneeded rows from the table.

PDF rendering doesn't Use a table with a group footer set to repeat on

support some bound items in each page. Place bound items in the group footer

page footers. rather than the page footer.

HTML rendering doesn't This is a characteristic of HTML rendering and is

support some table design not considered a bug. If reports require more exact

formatting. For example, tolerances, users should be instructed to use

narrow columns used for printer-friendly rendering formats like PDF and

spacing and borders are TIFF.

padded with extra space.

Using images in place of Most rendering formats were not designed to use

borders causes extra vertical images in place of borders. Images placed in table

and horizontal padding and cells will typically be padded. Report design is a

column misalignment. little different from web design, and some of the

techniques may not work. Reports should be
tested in all common rendering formats when
using images borders.

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