Report Definetion Language

Report Description Language is a standard proposed by Microsoft for describing reports. RDL is an XML application primarily used in Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services. RDL is usually written using Visual Studio, although there are many third-party tools; You can also create or edit manually using a regular text editor. Microsoft Reporting Services or other third-party reporting frameworks use RDL to describe tables, graphs, calculations, text, images (via links), and other report objects, and record them in a variety of formats. In a typical RDL file, there are three main sections: * Page layout - objects are displayed along with fields, images, graphs, tables. * Field descriptions - extended field attributes, filled with formulas, dynamic data or information from databases. * Parameters and connections to the database - parameters that can be defined by the user or transferred from another application; Here you specify the database connection parameters and queries for getting the data to build the report. == Additional Sources == * Specification Report Definition Language * RDL Project An open-source implementation of the Report Definition Language specification, with a GUI for design, support for WinForms & ASP.Net Rendering and the ability to save to many common file formats. * ReportViewer Control in Visual Studio 2008 * Data Dynamics Reports is a reporting tool developed by Data Dynamics for programmers working with RDL reports.

Report Definition Language