Counting Records in a Column in Reports

I'm using Oracle 7. I'm setting up a report in Oracle 7 Reports. For a particular field on the report, I want it to look at each record in a different column, determine if there is data in there (if yes, add +1 to a variable), and finally tell me how many records it found (in the field on the report). To attempt this, I have started to setup a function for the field that will output the data. I'm not sure if this is the correct approach.

In the function, I plan to count the number of records returned, use a loop to check for data present in each record, if not null then +1 to a variable etc... then I plan to use that variable for the return of the function.

Each loop will loop through several 100 even 1000 records, and the loop will be called 10 to 50 times. Is this an efficient way of going about this?

If my way of going about this right, could you please name a few commands that I will need to complete it. Like moving through records etc... I've written triggers in Forms but never Reports.

Courtney Received on Tue Aug 10 1999 - 07:49:39 CDT