Rave Reports Developer Guide

Creating DataLink Drivers .

There are typically three units that need to be created to compile a DataLink driver:

DataLinkSample.dpr – Contains the exports interface to the Rave IDE and Rave Reporting Server

RvDLSample.pas – Contains the Driver, Connection and ResultSet classes

RvDLSampleCfg.pas and .dfm – Contains the connection configuration form

There are four areas of database support that will need to be plugged into a framework of classes to create a DataLink driver.

· Prompt for the parameters necessary to create a connection such as database name, user name and password

· Create a connection typically composed of one or more database, session or connection components

· Return a list of table names in the database for a given connection

· Open a TDataSet compatible object for a given connection and SQL string

In the following source samples, you should change 'Sample' to the identifier that you have chosen for your database connection type (e.g. BDE or ADO or dbExpress). All other items marked in yellow will require additional coding to be functional. You should review the BDE, ADO and dbExpress driver source that comes with Rave or the Add-On datalink drivers for more detailed examples of how to fill in these methods.