Chapter 7. Report Definition Language

In This Chapter

• Language: A Way to Communicate

• Use of XML

• Declarative Programming

• Report Elements

The preceding chapter provided an introduction to Report Designer and Report Builder. This chapter takes a look at the output from these tools.

SSRS is unique in that it uses XML to generate reports. This chapter provides an insight into why Microsoft uses XML as their report generation language, and then delves into the structure of the resulting document.

Language: A Way to Communicate

At first glance, the name Report Definition Language (RDL) might appear to be a misnomer. As you’ve already seen, it is nothing more than an XML document, just like any other XML document. Why would they call this ...

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