Print selection criteria on report?

[Mike Schwartz-PC Support & Services]

> Now for my next question.  We have many outputs/reports that our users
> load
> saved selections for and then change the "value" field in the selection to
> choose the specific records that they want.  Is there an easy way to have
> the selection criteria print on the output form?  I spent a couple hours
> looking through the help file and my STN book, but I can't seem to find
> anything.

	filePro selection sets are ascii files, so you could open them up
and read their contents during the report processing phase.  However, the
values the users insert when they are running a report are "transient", so
they are not available to the report unless the users do a "save" on the
selection set after they change their values.  You might not want them to do
that, so they don't corrupt your selection sets.

	I'd suggest using sort/selection processing, rather than using
selection sets.  That way you can save the selection criteria someplace
until it's time to run the report.

	Better yet, you can use dclerk and setup a screen in a completely
separate file, where users can enter data and save the record.  Then, in
your report printing, you can retrieve the record and have the fields
available for use. 

	If you don't want to do that, you can capture the range of data
selected from within the report for some of the more commonly used fields.
For example, if they usually select based on an order date, you can capture
the highest and lowest dates in global variables, where they can be printed
someplace on the report.  This might result in some inaccuracies, though.
If the users selected a date range of 02/01/04 through 02/29/04, and there
weren't any orders entered on the 28th and 29th, because they are weekend
dates, then your report would show that it ran on selection dates of
02/02/04 thru 02/27/04.

Mike Schwartz