Flying Fox: Applying Visual FoxPro Reporting to Any Data, in Any Environment

With Visual FoxPro 9.0, you can add flexible and cost-effective reporting to any database accessible through ODBC or OLE-DB. No matter what type of programmer you are, this book provides you with the tools and techniques you need to use VFP 9 for reporting applications. Learn to... Access your data efficiently with VFP. All examples use MySQL sample data, and the source code includes a script for re-creating this data in Microsoft SQL Server 2000. Build reports, with many tips and tricks to help you take full advantage of VFP's full featured Report Designer. Provide opportunities for your end-users to customize reports, using the Report Designer royalty free. Use pre-built VFP CursorAdapter and DataEnvironment objects and a specialized VFP Reports framework, the source code for this book, to deliver full reporting applications to your customers. Simply add your data sources and the reports you've designed, plus an XML configuration file. Database developers who have never used Visual FoxPro can use this book to learn how to employ VFP as a low-cost and full-featured reporting tool for their data sources. VFP developers can use this to take a fresh look at reporting strategies that make use of features new in VFP 9, with a comprehensive strategy for using external data with reports.

Lisa Slater Nicholls is an independent software developer. She and Colin Nicholls provide enterprise data integration and analysis services using Visual FoxPro and XML in a variety of environments and languages (dba Spacefold). She has served in project management, design, and Xbase development roles for Visual FoxPro 9.0's report system features. She served as an integration engineer for Acxiom Corporation for four years, designing solutions for Oracle, Siebel, IBM and other Acxiom Alliance partners.