Oracle Reports is a tool for developing reports against data stored in an Oracle database

Oracle database

The Oracle Database is an object-relational database management system produced and marketed by Oracle Corporation....

. Oracle Reports consists of Oracle Reports Developer (a component of the Oracle Developer Suite

Oracle Developer Suite

Oracle Developer Suite is a suite of development tools released by the Oracle Corporation. The principal components were initially Oracle Forms and Oracle Reports, although the suite was later expanded to include JDeveloper amongst others.-History:...

) and Oracle Application Server Reports Services (a component of the Oracle Application Server

Oracle Application Server

In computing, the Oracle Application Server 10g , consists of an integrated, standards-based software platform. It forms part of Oracle Corporation's Fusion Middleware technology stack...

).

Output formats

The report output can be delivered directly to a printer or saved in the following formats:

• HTML
  HTML
  HyperText Markup Language is the predominant markup language for web pages. HTML elements are the basic building-blocks of webpages....
  
  
• RTF
  Rich Text Format
  The Rich Text Format is a proprietary document file format with published specification developed by Microsoft Corporation since 1987 for Microsoft products and for cross-platform document interchange....
  
  
• PDF
  Portable Document Format
  Portable Document Format is an open standard for document exchange. This file format, created by Adobe Systems in 1993, is used for representing documents in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems....
  
  
• XML
  Extensible Markup Language
  Extensible Markup Language is a set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable form. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C, and several other related specifications, all gratis open standards....
  
  
• Microsoft Excel
  Microsoft Excel
  Microsoft Excel is a proprietary commercial spreadsheet application written and distributed by Microsoft for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. It features calculation, graphing tools, pivot tables, and a macro programming language called Visual Basic for Applications...
  
  

SQL*ReportWriter

• Character based report writing tool.
• The software was purchased by Oracle from a third party

Oracle Reports 2.5

Release April 1995.
New Object Navigator.
New Toolbars.
New Menus.

Still no undos.

Oracle Reports 6i

New features added in 6i:

• WebDB integration
• XML Output
• HTML Parameter Form Extensions
• SQL Access to the Reports Server Queue
• EXEC_SQL Integration

Oracle Reports 9i

New features added in 9i:

• XML report definition
• Query types: XML, JDBC, Oracle9i OLAP
  OLAP
  In computing, online analytical processing, or OLAP , is an approach to swiftly answer multi-dimensional analytical queries. OLAP is part of the broader category of business intelligence, which also encompasses relational reporting and data mining...
  
  , text file
  Text file
  A text file is a kind of computer file that is structured as a sequence of lines of electronic text. A text file exists within a computer file system...
  
  s
• Pluggable Data Sources
• Java Importer
• Oracle9i JDeveloper Integration
• Oracle9i SCM Integration
• Integration with BI Beans
• Oracle9iAS Portal Report Import
• Edit Oracle9iAS Discoverer
  Oracle Discoverer
  Oracle Discoverer is a tool-set for ad-hoc querying, reporting, data analysis, and Web-publishing for the Oracle Database environment. Oracle Corporation markets it as a business intelligence product...
  
  Worksheet Export.

Oracle Reports 10g

New features added in 10g:

• New output format SPREADSHEET, output to Microsoft Excel.
• Extended HTML formatting customisation
• Compliant to HTML 4.01 and XML 1.1 standards

External links

• http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/reports/index.htmlOracle Reports
• Oracle Reports FAQ