Crystal Reports and LINQ

Question

Has anyone figured out how to use Crystal Reports with Linq to SQL?

Solution 1

You can convert your LINQ result set to a List, you need not strictly use a DataSet as the reports SetDataSource, you can supply a Crystal Reports data with an IEnumerable. Since List inherits from IEnumerable you can set your reports' Data Source to a List, you just have to call the .ToList() method on your LINQ result set. Basically:

        CrystalReport1 cr1 = new CrystalReport1();

        var results = (from obj in context.tSamples
                      where obj.ID == 112
                      select new { obj.Name, obj.Model, obj.Producer }).ToList();

        cr1.SetDataSource(results);
        crystalReportsViewer1.ReportSource = cr1;

Solution 2

The msdn doc's suggest that you can bind a Crystal Report to an ICollection.

Might I recommend a List(T) ?

Solution 3

Altough I haven't tried it myself it seems to be possible by using a combination of DataContext.LoadOptions to make it eager to accept relations and GetCommand(IQueryable) to return a SQLCommand object that preserves relations.

See more info on MSDN Forums.