count of group records in a group header

[toddbrook]

is it possible to do this with a variable which can be referenced in the group header's print when expression?

i have a number of reports which contain groups and when the reports contain data then everything displays fine.

however, if a report contains no data i would like to be able to display just a summary message that says there is no data. it is easy enough to display such a message in a band that only displays when $V{REPORT_COUNT} == 0, but the header of the first group still appears which i don't want.

i would like to have a variable that counts the number of records in a group and which can be used in the print when expression of a group header so that the header only appears when there are records in the group. is this possible? if so, how? i've trawled through many tutorials and forum threads but i can only find how to display the count in a text field in the header which is not what i want.

thanks

[jpauze]

Double check, when you added the group there should be a variable created specific to the group which can be used in the same manner as you were with the $V{REPORT_COUNT}.   I recall by default the variable name will be GROUPNAME_COUNT where GROUPNAME is the name of the group you created. 

Hope that helps.

[mdahlman]

toddbrook,

For the case "if a report contains no data" you should be able to handle it easily by using the band "No Data" which exists for exactly that purpose.

A Print When expression in a group header will indeed be harder because there is no way to set the evaluation time for the Print When expression as there is for a Text Field. It probably requires a scriptlet or other custom code to calculate the total ahead of time.

Regards,
Matt

[toddbrook]

Matt

Thanks, the no data band will solve a number of the problems I was having. Must remember to look for the simplest solution next time.

There are some other situations where it would be nice to be able to calculate a variable based on group totals and have the variable acessible in the group header. Is this something that could be done in a future release?

 

Thanks

Alex