Generating PDF reports programmatically using SQL Server Reporting Services 2005, in C#

Introduction

SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) 2005 is the latest version of the reporting technology from Microsoft. This article explains a way to create PDF reports programmatically using web services exposed by SQL Server Reporting Services 2005 in C#.

Using the code

First create a report which accepts boolean as its input parameter, and deploy that to the reporting server. The code below explains how to render the report in PDF format programmatically, using C#.

• Step 1: Create and deploy the report.
• Step 2: Add a web reference to the web services exposed by Reporting Services 2005, i.e., ReportExecution2005 and ReportService2005.
• Step 3: Declare the following variables:

  private rs2005.ReportingService2005 rs;
  private rsExecService.ReportExecutionService rsExec;

• Step 4: Initialize the web services and set the authentication for the web services.

  // Create a new proxy to the web service
  rs = new rs2005.ReportingService2005();
  rsExec = new rsExecService.ReportExecutionService();
  
  // Authenticate to the Web service using Windows credentials
  rs.Credentials = System.Net.CredentialCache.DefaultCredentials;
  rsExec.Credentials = System.Net.CredentialCache.DefaultCredentials;
  
  // Assign the URL of the Web service
  rs.Url = "http://ICCW1023/ReportServer" + 
           "$REPORTSERVER2005/ReportService2005.asmx";
  rsExec.Url = "http://ICCW1023/ReportServer" + 
               "$REPORTSERVER2005/ReportExecution2005.asmx";

• Step 5: Write code to render the report in PDF format.

  // Prepare Render arguments
  string historyID = null;
  string deviceInfo = null;
  string format = "PDF";
  Byte[] results;
  string encoding = String.Empty;
  string mimeType = String.Empty;
  string extension = String.Empty;
  rsExecService.Warning[] warnings = null;
  string[] streamIDs = null;
  
  // Default Path;
  string fileName = @"c:\samplereport.pdf";
  
  // Define variables needed for GetParameters() method
  // Get the report name
  string _reportName = @"/MyReports/Report";
  string _historyID = null;
  bool _forRendering = false;
  ParameterValue[] _values = null;
  DataSourceCredentials[] _credentials = null;
  ReportParameter[] _parameters = null;
  
  try
  {
    // Get if any parameters needed.
    _parameters = rs.GetReportParameters(_report, _historyID, 
                  _forRendering, _values, _credentials);
  
    // Load the selected report.
    rsExecService.ExecutionInfo ei = 
          rsExec.LoadReport(_reportName, historyID);
  
    // Prepare report parameter.
    // Set the parameters for the report needed.
    rsExecService.ParameterValue[] parameters = 
           new rsExecService.ParameterValue[1];
  
    // Place to include the parameter.
    if (_parameters.Length > 0 )
    {
      parameters[0] = new rsExecService.ParameterValue();
      parameters[0].Label = "verzamelgroepAP";
      parameters[0].Name = "verzamelgroepAP";
      parameters[0].Value = "true";
    }
    rsExec.SetExecutionParameters(parameters, "en-us");
    results = rsExec.Render(format, deviceInfo, 
              out extension, out encoding,
              out mimeType, out warnings, out streamIDs);
  
    // Create a file stream and write the report to it
    using (FileStream stream = File.OpenWrite(fileName))
    {
      stream.Write(results, 0, results.Length);
    }
  }
  catch (Exception ex)
  {
    MessageBox.Show( ex.Message);
  }