FAQ

Q. What is FastReport?

A. FastReport is the name of software products family made by Fast Reports Inc. company. These products are very popular among developers of different programming languages. For more information look web-site of Fast Reports Inc (http://fast-report.com/en).

--------------------------------
Q. What is FRH?

A. FRH is "FastReport for [x]Harbour". It's a generator of reports for [x]Harbour-languages family applications. FRH is based on FastReport but has a system of total immersion in the [x]Harbor-application at HB API level. Author of FRH is Sergey Spirin.

--------------------------------
Q. What is FRAX?

A. FRAX is "FastReport for Alaska Xbase++". It's a generator of reports for Alaska Xbase++ applications. FRAX is based on FastReport and completely adapted to work with Alaska Xbase++ at C API level of Xbase++. Author of FRH is Sergey Spirin.

--------------------------------
Q. Who is Sergey Spirin?

A. Sergey Spirin is the individual businessman registered in the Russian Federation. Since 2006 Sergey Spirin is official OEM-partner of Fast Report Inc. In a context of this partnership, Sergey Spirin develops FRH and FRAX.

--------------------------------
Q. How is the FRH/FRAX licensed? Is a single licence enough to use FRH/FRAX in our (various) products?

A. FRH/FRAX is licensed "per developer". Each developer of your application(s) needs to have his own FRH/FRAX license. That is, the amount of your licenses is the count of developers who will use the FRH/FRAX for developing, but not the count of your applications or your customers. There are the special FRH/FRAX discounts for the team of developers.

--------------------------------
Q. How should FRH/FRAX be distributed to end users (licences)?

A. You can redistribute the FRH/FRAX run-time dll AS A PART OF YOUR APPLICATION(s) without restriction.

--------------------------------
Q. Does "designer module" require separate licences if it will be used by our customers for creating customised reports within our applications?

A. No. Designer does not require separate licences.

--------------------------------
Q. What I receive if I buy FRH/FRAX?

A. You receive:

Your personal copy of FRH/FRAX which consists of FRH/FRAX-dll and prg/ch-files. Personal copy is registered in Fast Report Inc as "OEM-product containing FastReport Designer". You can downlod all future builds of your copy in limits of one main version (now 4.xx.xx). All copies are regulary rebuilded.

Technical support. About FRH/FRAX-specific questions is from Sergey Spirin. About other questions is from FastReport support-team.

--------------------------------
Q. What is the personal copy of FRH/FRAX? Why personal?

A. The matter is that, at least, default languages of FRH/FRAX-users are different. FastReport supports 32 languages now, and, certainly, one of them is compiled in resources as default language. To compile universal copy of FRH/FRAX (for example English) only - the inconvenient decision. So, in automatic mode, copies of FRAX are compiled personally for each user. Each user has the personal link for downloading and password. Besides the information about owner "is stitched" in a copy and it is visible in a window "About".

--------------------------------
Q. With what DBE can I use FRAX?

A. With any DBE. FRAX works with Alaska Xbase at C++ API level, so there is no difference.

--------------------------------
Q. Can I use FRH with MySQL, ADS etc? Does FRH use ODBC or some another subsystem?

A. If to answer shortly. If you can get data inside your applcation (from ADS, My SQL, etc) then FRH will work with this data, and you can use it. FRH do not use ODBC or something similar drivers etc.

More in detail. FRH works with data (that is available in your application) through [x]Harbour C-API. It means that:

If data is RDD's work area, then:

You use :SetWorkArea()-method (or TfrxHarbourWorkArea internal FRH-object) and report gets data automatically with some and low-level (C-API) functions like: hb_rddGetCurrentWorkAreaNumber hb_rddGetFieldValue etc, and with high-level functions, like DbSkip(), Eof() etc. Report works with the same work area like, for example, any browser in your application will work with it. FRH work with native workarea. There is no double open/connect and so on nonsense..

If data is not work area and accsessible by some object (or something other like arrays, files etc) in your application, then:

You use FRH's UserDataset in which you define data-accsess by set of codeblocks. In common case it's look something like:

----
function SetSomeDataSet(oFrManager, cFrAlias, oDataSet)
local cStr:='', x
   for x := 1 to oDataSet:FieldCount()
      cStr+=oDataSet:FieldName(x) + ";"
   next

      oFrManager:SetUserDataSet(cFrAlias, cStr,;
            {||oDataSet:GoTop()}, {||oDataSet:Skip(1)}, ;
            {||oDataSet:Skip(-1)}, {||oDataSet:Eof()},;
            {|cField|oDataSet:oFieldByName(cField):FieldGet()})
Return Nil
----

It's a direct accsess to data of your application from report too.

And in addition, ONLY AS ADDITION, you can use separate connect to data through ADO. In this case you do not use your applcation, but independed connect to data. Ordinary it's used for some not native formats etc. In demo it's "ADO and Charts" report that connect to MS Accsess mdb-file.

Frequently Asked Questions