A simple RDLC report runner library.

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The RDLCReportRunner is a handy little tool to own if you want to create pdf files on the fly from within your application. It can be used on both desktop and web apps :) There are, of course, other open source or commercial 3rd party libraries that allow you to create pdfs by hand-rolling your pdf document, but for me the easiest way to create a pdf document is to use an RDLC report.

I know, I know, RDLC reports are aweful, the technology is old and ugly, but it is free and convenient to use once you get the hang of it. The designer is bad (kinda like an Access Form) and there aren't many configuration options, but it gets the job done.

So how do you use the RDLCReportRunner library?

###Instantiate the RDLC Report Runner###

Firstly, you need to create an RDLC report to use with the RDLCReportRunner. The report can use a datasource, parameters or both. Then you need to instantiate the RdlcReportRunner and populate the right properties as per the example below:

var rdlcReportRunner = new RdlcReportRunner
   {
       OutputPath = @"C:\Temp", // the output directory
       OutputFileName = "TestReportOutput", // the output file name - no extension is required
       ReportDataFile = null, // an xml file with the report datasources
       RdlcReportName = @"TestRdlc.rdlc",  // the actual RDLC report to render with the data
       ReportParameters = paramDictionary // key value pairs with parameter name and parameter value
};

The comments next to each parameter are self explanatory. To populate the data in the report you can provide a ReportDataFile, ReportParameters or both. Of course, you will need to define the appropriate datasource and parameters in the rdlc file itself, but as long as the xml data file and the parameter names match, you are good to go

###Run the report###

var reportData = rdlcReportRunner.GenerateReport();

The GenerateReport() is where the magic happens. The method parses the data and popuplates the report. Expect an exception if there is an error. RDLC reports are very temperamental and will throw errors for everything. There is no margin for error, so make sure everything is in order. Hopefully, the error message you help you out in case of an error, just remember you've been warned.

This methods returns a byte[]. This is handy if you want to stream the report back to the user from a browswer etc.

###Export the report to the file system### Finally, if you want to get your hands on the precious .pdf file, you can run the WriteReportToFile() method as per the example below:

rdlcReportRunner.WriteReportToFile(reportData).Wait();

You need to pass the byte[] that we got earlier and the full report path will be: OutputPath + OutputFileName.pdf. If you have been paying attention, this is an async call as we interact with the file system and the write operation is async as well. It's down to you if you want to call this synchronously or asynchronously.

###Sample Code### You can download and run the project. The solution contains a small console app that executes the code I've shown you above and generate a simple RDLC report with a "Hello world" message.

Feel free to email or raise any issues if you come across a problem