Crystal Reports, C#, Object as Data Source

Based on the Ping example from one of the recent posts, I'm continuing it with the Crystal Reports example, because I have never used Crystal Reports until now. So consider that the following class was added to the solution.

public class PingResult
{
 public string sPacketsSent;
 public string sPacketsReceived;
 public string sPacketsLost;
 public string sPacketTime;
}

An instance of the class is created and populated with results when the ping command runs and its results are parsed. So I have one of the simplest possible objects to use as a source for a report. The next step is to add a Crystal Report to the application. Visual Studio 2010 has an item to add called "Crystal Report", but they are not installed.

Crystal Report Online Template

When I select this item, I'm prompted with a download screen.

Download Crystal Reports

Installation is simple - just following the instructions. I chose the standard version, and the download size is 288MB. After a few short hours, I have a Crystal Report called pingReport.mht in my solution. I have an option to configure my report using the wizard, which I'm doing by choosing the following options:

On the first page, Using the Report Wizard, and Standard layout.

Create a New Crystal Report Document

On the next page, I choose to populate my report from .NET Object in project data. My PingResult class is in the list, and I move it to the Selected Tables.

Choose the data you want to report on

Then I choose the fields to display, of which I select all.

Choose the information to display on the report

I skip Grouping, Report Selection and Report Style, leaving default values. Now I have my report editor. I only want to do a little change - make the headers human readable, so I edit them in the following manner

Edit text object

Now some tricks: when I build my solution, I get the following error:

Warning 1 The referenced assembly "CrystalDecisions.CrystalReports.Engine, Version=13.0.2000.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=692fbea5521e1304, processorArchitecture=MSIL" could not be resolved because it has a dependency on "System.Web, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a" which is not in the currently targeted framework ".NETFramework,Version=v4.0,Profile=Client". Please remove references to assemblies not in the targeted framework or consider retargeting your project. PingTest

This is quite obvious, I need to add a reference to System.Web, but to do that I need to first change the Target Framework default setting of .NET Framework 4 Client Profile to just .NET Framework 4. Now the project builds.

In my toolbox I now have the pingReport1 component, which I add to the form.

pingReport1

I also need a report viewer, which I also add

CrystalReportViewer

The final effort: connect the report with the object that contains data. Here's how:

pingReport1 myReport = new pingReport1();
myReport.SetDataSource(new[] { pingResult });
pingReportViewer1.ReportSource = myReport;

Looks simple, just note how the objects are wrapped into array. This is important.

And the final trick, when I run the application, I get the FileNotFound exception

FileNotFoundException

which is resolved by adding the useLegacyV2RuntimeActivationPolicy="true" parameter to the startup node of my app.config which now looks like the following

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<configuration>
<startup  useLegacyV2RuntimeActivationPolicy="true">
  <supportedRuntime version="v4.0" sku=".NETFramework,Version=v4.0"/>
</startup>
</configuration>

At this point I consider my small example complete.

Complete

References

Creating Crystal Reports using C# with Datasets
Very Odd situation with CrystalReport and/or Visual studio 2010 I don't know maybe .Net Framework
Can crystal reports get data from an object data source? by Evgeny. Also posted on my website

NuGet, Entity Framework 4.1 and DbContext API

NuGet is a "Package Manager" that can and should be used with Visual Studio 2010 because it makes installing and updating the libraries, frameworks and extensions so much easier. To install NuGet, I go to Tools -> Extension Manager within Visual Studio and search for the NuGet in the online gallery. In the search results, all I have to do is click "Install".

Now, what if I have Entity Framework installed and want to update version 4 to 4.2? I don't have to search it somewhere on download.microsoft.com or elsewhere. Right within my project I go to References, right-click and select "Add library package reference".

The Entity Framework is installed, but it's version 4.1.

I select "Updates" from the menu on the left and immediately see that 4.2 is available. I select "Update", accept terms and conditions and I'm done.

Steps that are not required: searching for an update package, manual download of the package, manual uninstall of the previous version, manual install of the new version, verifying that I save the downloaded package in an easily accessible location in case anyone in my team also needs it ... Time saved per package update: anywhere between 3 and 30 minutes.

However, it does not always go smoothly. Just today I tried to add a package "on the fly". Right-click my model, go to "Add code generation item", select "ADO.NET C# DbContext Generator" and click "Install". And here Visual Studio stopped responding.

I killed it, repeated the sequence of actions and it stopped responding again. So I started it and added the package through the Tools -> Extension Manager as described above and it worked perfectly. So, don't ask too much from your favourite IDE.

by Evgeny. Also posted on my website