InMemoryDataProviderWrapper: Data Provider on Steroids

The features of different data providers vary widely. Depending on the data source, sorting, native aggregate functions or filters at database level may be available directly. Or not. For example, none of this is available in file-based formats such as JSON or XML, or even in “web” formats such as REST. These are typically read “front to back” and therefore cannot offer sorting or native aggregation. With List & Label 29, we have something new to offer.

New Data Provider for Azure Cosmos Database

Azure Cosmos DB is a fully managed Microsoft NoSQL database for modern app development, which is growing in popularity. Various APIs are available for connecting to Cosmos DB, as for example SQL API, Cassandra API or MongoDB API. Since we’re already able to connect to MongoDB or Cassandra through their own data providers, we’ll use the SQL API for the provider.

What’s New for .NET in List & Label 28?

List & Label 28 provides some new features and improvements for .NET developers. Most important, we’re now supporting the just released .NET 7. Performancewise, the optimized use of byte arrays for images makes a noticeable difference. And there’s also news regarding the support of new data sources. Here’s a list of the new features.

New DataProvider for Redis

Redis is an in-memory key-value database, so a typical NoSQL database. Since its initial release in 2009, it has become quite popular and now is, according to db-engines.com by far the most popular key-value database out there. With the new RedisDataProvider you can now use your Redis database within List & Label or Report Server.

Supporting Cross-Datasource Relations

The .NET DataProvider concept allows to bind to almost any data source. Basically, it mimics a relational database management system containing tables, relations, sort orders etc. However, often you'll find yourself needing to combine data from different sources, e.g. a server log file that contains customer logins and a SQL customer database that contains all pertinent information about the customers.

Building a Better Databinding Ecosystem for Delphi

The IDataProvider interface for .NET has enabled many features that are not available for all of the other platforms so far. Most importantly, it brings multiple report containers and nested tables. For C++, we've included a sample in LL21. This is sadly missing in Delphi. In addition, the current Delphi data-binding engine still works against the BDE, a technology that has been deprecated quite a while ago by Embarcadero.

Progress OpenEdge Reporting Tool List & Label 21

This time we feature a guest post from our partner and developer colleague Thomas Wurl. About two years ago, Thomas developed a free data provider for Progress OpenEdge available for all List & Label customers. While this provider was adopted successfully by many Progress users, it suffered some restrictions. So Thomas decided to restart from scratch and came up with an incredibly fast and powerful new solution. Here's his story. 

New and Overhauled Data Providers

The ObjectDataProvider is one of the key providers we ship with LL. It binds to generic lists just as well as to EntityFramework or other Object Relational Mapper data. It is also the final fallback for all datasources that cannot be handled by one of the other providers. In LL21, the provider got a couple of new features for the .NET 4.0 assembly.