QDL also supports querying remote databases. This requires that the full URL be specified, and that the remote instance box be filled in. Then enter the appropriate SQL. On saving the page, click the Refresh option in the Action Menu to run the report. The results of the query will cached in the page contents as a standardized HTML table.

 

You can also set some options that control the appearance of the table. Using the Template method, select a QDL page that has a table with one row in it. Anything within the "tr" tags that is also within square brackets, and that matches the name of a field, will be replaced with the value of that field. There will be as many rows like this in the resulting HTML table as there are records returned by the SQL. For example, this SQL...

select first, last, favColor from table

...using this template...

My Great Table

[first]

[last]

[favColor]

...might result in something like this...

My Great Table

John	Doe	blue
Jane	Doe	green

With a bit less effort, you can leave the template option blank, and just specify attributes for the entire table and for each cell in the boxes below, and you can choose between the field names at the top or down the left side. Note that if you select a template, these options will be ignored.