Change Connection String in Subreport

[James]

I had created a Master-Detail report.  In this report, the subreport contains a report which displays the detail data.  I want to change the connection string of the subreport because sometimes the location of the Access database changes.  How can I use code to change the connection string (i.e. database location) for the subreport contained in the Master report?

Thanks.

[Chavdar]

Hello James,

As Telerik Reporting report definitions are standard .net classes you can easily expose a property on the detail report class for the connection string and set it from outside, for example in an event. Let us know if you experience any problems in achieving this functionality.

Regards,
Chavdar
the Telerik team

[James]

Hello,

Thanks for the reply.

Could you please provide sample code to show this functionality.


Thanks.

[Steve]

Hello James,

Here is a sample code snippet:

Copy Code

public string ConnectionString
{
    set
    {
        this.sqlDataSource1.ConnectionString = value;
    }
}

Copy Code

var report = new ReportDynamicConnectionString();
report.ConnectionString = @"Data Source=.\SQLEXPRESS2008;Initial Catalog=AdventureWorks;Integrated Security=True";
this.ReportViewer1.Report = report;

Hope this helps.

Greetings,
Steve
the Telerik team

[Richard]

What about the sub report?

[Chavdar]

Hello,

In general the best approach is to use named connection strings which are stored in the application's configuration file. Thus by simply modifying the configuration file you can change the connection strings for all of the reports. More information you can find in the Storing and Retrieving Connection Strings MSDN article. For the reports you just have to specify the name of the connection string for the ConnectionString property of the respective data source component.

If you want to change the connection string programmatically there are different approaches depending on how the reports are represented. For example, if they are xml files (.trdx) you can use the XmlDocument class and replace the attribute value of all elements that contain the ConnectionString attribute. On the other side if your report is a .net class you can use a helper method which returns all subreport's datasources. For example:

static IEnumerable<T> GetDataSources<T>(Telerik.Reporting.Report report) where T : Telerik.Reporting.DataSource
{
    // REPORT
    if (report.DataSource is T)
    {
        yield return (T)report.DataSource;
    }

    // SUBREPORTS
    var subReports = report.Items.Find(typeof(Telerik.Reporting.SubReport), true);

    foreach (Telerik.Reporting.SubReport subReport in subReports)
    {
        var irs = subReport.ReportSource as Telerik.Reporting.InstanceReportSource;

        if (null != irs)
        {
            foreach (var dataSource in GetDataSources<T>((Telerik.Reporting.Report)irs.ReportDocument))
            {
                yield return dataSource;
            }
        }
    }
}

Hope this helps.

Greetings,
Chavdar
the Telerik team