Just as with the XML Data Set, once you finish the initial setup, you enter the edit
Data Set Dialog. From here, you can create filters and computed columns, in addition
to the columns outputted by the data adapter itself. With the XML Data Set, flat file
Data Set, and the scripted Data Set that we will look at later, the ability to create
filters inside of BIRT is very useful when there is no back end filtering capability, as
there would be with a database system using the WHERE clause in an SQL statement.
With the two non-JDBC Data Sets out of the way, we can now create the Data Set for
our JDBC Data Sources. Typically, this is where you will spend most of your report
development time. I know in my experience, I have used these types of Data Sets
more than any of the others because so many applications use a RDBMS back end
to store data. In the following example, we are going to create only one Data Set, as
the two JDBC Data Sources we have point to the same set of data. In this Data Set,
we want to retrieve a listing of Orders and Order Details, using an SQL statement to
join the two tables. I will not assume any prior knowledge of SQL for this example;
instead I will give you the SQL statement to use.
Working with Data
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1. In the Data Explorer tab, right-click on the Data Sets folder, and choose New
Data Set.
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