Creating Hierarchies by Hiding Duplicate Values

Use the Hide Duplicates element to create a hierarchical layout within a Data Table from one or more data groups.

The Hide Duplicates element can be added beneath any Data Table Column to suppress output when the record in the current row is equal to the record from the previous row. By utilizing the Hide Duplicates element in several columns, developers can achieve the effect of a hierarchical table.

This example starts with the same datalayer used in the previous example, and uses one Data Table Column element for each report column, as shown above. Each Data Table Column has a child Label element to display the data. No Group Header Row or Group Summary Row elements, or their child elements, will be used.

Beneath each of the first six Data Table Column elements, add a Hide Duplicates element. This element has one attribute, Data Column, which is the name of the column to check for duplicate values.

In the first three columns (the "Customer" columns), set this value to "CustomerID", as shown above.

In the second set of three columns (the "Order" columns), set Hide Duplicates elements' Data Column attribute to a comma-separated list of "CustomerID,OrderID", as shown above.

and the resulting report shows how the data is grouped and indented by virtue of suppressing duplicate data.