Data access components

As a rule most reports are based on data sourced from a DB. Delphi provides a variety of components for linking to DB data and FastReport makes use of these links. Here we discuss the use of TTable and TQuery components as data sources for reports, but in general any TDataSet descendant can be used.

Apart from this, a report in FastReport can contain its own data access components which you can create and configure at run-time. The principles of data access in FastReport are much the same as those used in the Delphi environment. Just as in Delphi a component is placed on a dialogue form and its properties are set in the object inspector.

Component design is very flexible and new components to support different database engines can easily be created (see the Developers Manual).