R&R Report Writer for Windows SQL Edition Version 1.01. (Concentric Data Systems) (Software Review) (one of four report generation software evaluations in 'Dressing Up Data') (Evaluation)

For many years Xbase users have turned to Concentric Data Systems for one of the premiere report writers, R&R. The Windows version of this venerable product offers much of the functionality and look and feel of its DOS-based siblings.

You can use R&R's SQL Edition in the Auto-SQL mode, which constructs SQL statements based on your menu selections and dialog box entries, or you can create your own SQL Select statement.

When you process a report, R&R creates composite records that meld together the fields of all tables of the report. The composite records are then laid out on the screen or on paper based on the design you create in the R&R environment.

SPEED

R&R turned in decent times on all our speed tests, on a par overall with Crystal Reports and Impromptu. R&R took a bit longer than Crystal Reports on the short reports but had the speed advantage on the long reports, both with a single user and in our four-user test. R&R led the field in printing the huge report to disk, and R&R and Crystal Reports were far faster than Impromptu and ReportSmith on this part of the benchmarks. Score: Very Good. (75 of 100)

INSTALLATION AND CONFIGURATION

We had no difficulty installing and configuring R&R. A complete installation took less than 3MB of space.

You can install R&R on a stand-alone PC or a network. For network operation, the system tracks the number of simultaneous users and prevents access when all valid serial numbers are in use. If an R&R session is not closed properly (due to a crash, for example), you (or your network administrator) will have to notify the program that a given serial number is free for reuse.

R&R reports are stored in library files with .RP6 extensions. You can store any number of reports in a single library. Library file names must adhere to the DOS …