Update existing report

English Forum
1

Hello,
I would like to ask you wich is the best way to update an existing report (.lst file) without loosing customized tables and containers, but simply updating it with a sort of merging process.
Basically this would be the workflow:

  1. A standard report Report_v1 (lst file) is created and contains logo, tables and charts
  2. Someone customize Report_v1 changing logo image, some field data and some table column
  3. A new version Report_v2 is created with 1 new table and 2 new columns in an existing table
  4. Customized Report_v1 is merged with standard Report_v2, adding what is new and leaving customization.
  5. Something went wrong during the merge process and the original customized Report_v1 is restored (rollback action)

Is there a best practice to do it using L&L Designer?
Do we need to do it using some tool or writing the code?

Thanks

Ivano

2

I’m not sure but I think there exists no Merge-Tool for reports. So you need to do this by your own in source code. The best way would be to use the DOM-API of List & Label. Here you have access to all objects and properties within the report file (*.lst) and can modify etc. it. The documentation within the .NET component is a good start-point for that. But also have a look into the installed programming samples in sub-folder ..\Samples\Microsoft .NET\.NET 6\WinForms\ - here you will find also some examples using the DOM-API of List & Label - helped me a lot in the past.