report builder query - how to suppress output.

[Mike Scott-2]

Hi. I've been trying to get my head round report builder (it seems a
very steep learning curve, ill-documented), and there's one issue that's
eluding me - how to conditionally completely suppress output.

I'm trying to format an address book from material in a database. As
usual, there'll be fields for name, 1st and 2nd lines of address, town,
email, phone, etc.

I can do a simple-minded report using report builder, which looks at the
moment to fulfil the need, except for one problem. When a database field
is empty (eg, no email or no 2nd address line), is there any way of
completely suppressing that line of output? I don't want pointless blank
lines appearing.

It's exactly the issue raised at
https://ask.libreoffice.org/en/question/21488/base-report-builder-suppress-blank-lines/
but the linked solution on an OO web page doesn't seem relevant to LO --
(I can't find Insert > Section in this context).

I'm hoping I'm just missing something obvious - I'd be grateful for any
pointers please. Also, is there a good tutorial around with examples for
report builder?

Thanks.


--
Mike Scott (unet2 <at> [deletethis] scottsonline.org.uk)
Harlow Essex England
"The only way is Brexit" -- anon.

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[Robert Großkopf]

Hi Mike,
>
> I can do a simple-minded report using report builder, which looks at the
> moment to fulfil the need, except for one problem. When a database field
> is empty (eg, no email or no 2nd address line), is there any way of
> completely suppressing that line of output? I don't want pointless blank
> lines appearing.

You could only suppress the output for a complete section of the report.
So the whole data of one row could be suppressed, not a "row of fields"
in the section "Details".
>
> I'm hoping I'm just missing something obvious - I'd be grateful for any
> pointers please. Also, is there a good tutorial around with examples for
> report builder?

You could try to set the height of the fields to automatic height, but I
don't know if it would set the hight to '0' for the fields. See
https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=45789#c10

I have tried the documentation for ReportBuilder for the German
Base-Handbuch. You could find older translations here:
http://robert.familiegrosskopf.de/lo_hb_en/

Regards

Robert
--
Homepage: http://robert.familiegrosskopf.de
LibreOffice Community: http://robert.familiegrosskopf.de/map_3


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[Mike Scott-2]

(originally sent from non-subscribed address; that seems to have
vanished. Trying again with my subscribed list address)

On 28/08/18 14:12, Robert Großkopf wrote:

> Hi Mike,
>>
>> I can do a simple-minded report using report builder, which looks at the
>> moment to fulfil the need, except for one problem. When a database field
>> is empty (eg, no email or no 2nd address line), is there any way of
>> completely suppressing that line of output? I don't want pointless blank
>> lines appearing.
>
> You could only suppress the output for a complete section of the report.
> So the whole data of one row could be suppressed, not a "row of fields"
> in the section "Details".

Thanks for the reply.

I'm still 'all at sea', I'm afraid. I can't for the life of me see how
to create a new section, never mind how to make it disappear conditionally.

The German translation you mention seems to be roughly what I've already
seen; I've not found it helpful, I'm afraid.

Judging by the lack of other responses to my query, this must be a
somewhat obscure part of LO. I think perhaps I'd better stick with my
existing perl script I've been using to generate ODF documents from a
spreadsheet -- seems easier to cut perl code than understand Report
Builder. :-( :-(



--
Mike Scott
Harlow, Essex, England

--
Mike Scott (unet2 <at> [deletethis] scottsonline.org.uk)
Harlow Essex England
"The only way is Brexit" -- anon.

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[Robert Großkopf]

Hi Mike,

>
> I'm still 'all at sea', I'm afraid. I can't for the life of me see how
> to create a new section, never mind how to make it disappear conditionally.

When starting to edit a report you could see Pageheader, Details and
Pagefooter.
This are 3 sections of the report. You could add groups for everything
you will sort. So you could get more sections: a groupheader and, if you
have choosen, a groupfooter. Every new grouping creates new sections.

For every section you could choose an expression for a conditional
display (don't know, if the translation is right here). You could write
there something like
[Name]="Robert"
So the section will only appear when the content of the field "Name" in
your datasource is "Robert".

If this is obscure for you please write down you question a little bit
better. Might be I don't understand ist the right way - because my
knowledge of English is very obscure.

Regards

Robert
--
Homepage: http://robert.familiegrosskopf.de
LibreOffice Community: http://robert.familiegrosskopf.de/map_3


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