Using an object that implements the Crystal Data Source interface is a straightforward process, much like using any ActiveX component in an application. A Reference to the component must first be made, then an instance of the component object must be created in the application, and finally, the properties and methods of the object can be used. In this example, we will use the ActiveX DLL we created to obtain a MyDataSource object that we can pass to the Active Data Driver in a report generated using the Crystal Designer Component.
For this example, we will assume you have created an application in Visual Basic and designed a report using the Crystal Report Designer Component. For more information on the Crystal Report Designer Component, see the Crystal Reports Developer's Guide.
If you want to create a new report that can use the MyDataSource ActiveX DLL, create the report using three fields corresponding to the Customer ID, Customer Name, and City fields in the Customer table of the Xtreme sample data ODBC data source. To make things simple, you can use ADO to connect directly to those three fields. The purpose of this tutorial is simply to teach the techniques, not, necessarily, to produce a real application.
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