Displaying groups in arbitrary order

From: Andy Smetana <andy.smetana_at_srs.gov>
Date: 8 Aug 2003 06:29:15 -0700
Message-ID: <c9042a93.0308080529.75764096_at_posting.google.com>

[Quoted] I am using Reports 9i and have a query that returns the following information: Task (varchar2), ID (num), component (varchar2), text_value (varchar2) The data is ordered by Task, ID.

The required report layout has 1 to 4 Task groups across the page and the number is intermixed:

      Task
        component, text_value


        .

        .


      Task


        .

        .


Task    Task    Task
  .       .       .
  .       .       .

    Task      Task
      .         .
      .         .

and so forth.

Each Task has a fixed number of records associated with it and all of the Task names are also know so I can handle the formatting by conditionally suppressing different report blocks based on the value(s) of Task/

[Quoted] The problem is the Task need to be displayed in a know but arbitrary order. Displaying the Task in ascending order will work for many but not all Tasks.

I know of two potential ways to handle this problem: 1) Change the query to ORDER BY DECODE ( list of 50 - 100 items) 2) Create a report block for each Task. ie 50 to 100 report blocks

It seems like there should be an easier way to do this. Any suggestions? Received on Fri Aug 08 2003 - 15:29:15 CEST