Chapter 15: Exploring Crystal Reports SQL Commands

Highlights

In Chapter 1 you learned that the Crystal Reports program essentially provides an easy-to-use method of creating a query against a database. Queries request information from a database in the SQL query language. In this chapter, we look at writing SQL queries within Crystal Reports.

A question is probably ringing in your head: If Crystal Reports goes through all the trouble of querying your database in a user-friendly manner, why would you want to delve into writing SQL yourself? Why not just have Crystal Reports do the dirty work for you?

As a report writer, you'll find writing queries useful. You can create query files and connect your reports to these files. Using query files in your reports eliminates much of the data-generating tasks performed by Crystal Reports on a database server. Query files result in much quicker report generation for your users.