Printing Forms with Detail Blocks
Summary: Using a form to print detail records can be useful for printing invoices or lists in a highly formatted manner. It is also convenient because you can use the same form for entering data and printing. In order to print a form with a detail block which has more detail records than the number of detail rows, a little bit of programming is required. This technote explains how to print a form with many detail records without the detail records repeating and with the last page of the detail records having blank rows if the number of detail records remaining is less than the number of detail rows on the form. 
This technote uses the example files and form from the \SAMPLES\PERSONNL directory to illustrate the program. 
Open the form SITE.SBF by choosing File|Open|Form|Report.
This form has fields from 2 files: SITE and EMPLOYEE. It lists all the employees for a given site.
You can print the SITE file with its employee information using this form. Do this by attaching a command button with the following command behind it:
	RUN "PRINTROUTINE"
To learn more about how to place a command button on the form, refer to the Defining Forms and Custom Reports manual.
Open the program editor by choosing Program|Edit and type the following code (there a number of REM statements throughout the code for clarity, you don't need to type the lines starting with REM).

REM This is the main procedure
     SUB main()
REM Select the first record on the SITE file and display it
          SELECT FORM FIRST 
          FORM 

REM Repeat the same for all the records in the SITE file until you encounter an End-Of -File
         WHILE NOT EOF ("SITE")

REM Call procedure fprint
 	    CALL fprint()
	    SELECT FORM NEXT 
          WEND 
      END SUB 
      END 


REM This is the fprint procedure
     SUB fprint()
 	 i% = 1
	 flag$ = "True"

REM Store the contents of the SITE information in a temporary variable.
	 temp1$ = SITENO.SITE
 
REM Switch to the Detail or EMPLOYEE file and select the corresponding records 
	FILE "EMPLOYEE"
            INDEX "EMPLOYEENO"
	SELECT WHERE SITENO.EMPLOYEE = temp1$
	SELECT FIRST 
	WHILE NOT EOF ("EMPLOYEE")

REM If there are any corresponding employee's for the site then set the flag% variable to 10.
		flag$="False"

REM Update the rows with information from EMPLOYEE file.
		FOR i% = 1 TO 3
		        IF NOT EOF ("") THEN 
			        UPDATE FORM ROW i% 
		        	        SELECT NEXT 
		         ELSE 

REM If the number of records is less than the number of rows, blank the rows
			        BLANK FILE "employee"
			        UPDATE FORM ROW i%
		         END IF 
		 NEXT i%
     		 FORM 
		 PRINT CURRENT PAGE
	WEND 

REM If there are no Detail records then print just the Site information		  
    IF flag$="True" THEN 
       FORM 
       PRINT CURRENT PAGE 
    END IF 
 
   SELECT WHERE
   FILE "SITE"
	
 END SUB 

Note: When using this program with different files, replace field and file names appropriately.















Program:	Superbase		
Versions:	2.0
Date:	June 18, 1993		
D
Date: