Creating variables from data

[TEM3]

Twenty years ago when life was much simplier I did a lot of report creations using dBase III tables and the dBase programming language. There was a very nice feature where you could create variables from table data by a concatination process.

Here is an example of the syntax (I have forgotten the machanics involved):

&unita&unitname = &unita&unitname + nu_of_spec

I am using Crystal Reports 8.5 and Oracle 9i tables. Is there a way to do such a thing using either Crystal Reports or SQL?

 

[lbass]

You certainly can create variables in CR that will allow you to summarize data. I think it would help if you explained what you intended to do with the variable and how the concatenation fits in.

-LB

 

[TEM3]

Here is an example:

There are about 300 users with their user id's ("varchar2(6)") as data throughout various tables associated with various activities. I would like to parse one or more table to total those activities between certain dates or whatever. It dBase I could create a variable on the fly (the first time the a particular user id was encountered) and use that variable as a counter (or whatever). That way the report would only create and use as many variables as were needed and not 300, most of which would not be needed for a specific report.

I know I'm not explaining this well, but perhaps you get the idea.