Custom report layout question...can't find any answers anywhere

Question

I am trying to build a report in Portal, using the custom report layout. The report displays like so, before I do any customization:
COLUMN1 COLUMN2 COLUMN3
COLUMN1 COLUMN2 COLUMN3
COLUMN1 COLUMN2 COLUMN3
COLUMN1 COLUMN2 COLUMN3
where COLUMN1 is the same value, always per report; COLUMN2 and COLUMN3 vary.
What I want is:
COLUMN1
COLUMN2 COLUMN3
COLUMN2 COLUMN3
COLUMN2 COLUMN3
COLUMN2 COLUMN3
In the report layout editor, Body section, this is what I see:
<TD ALIGN="LEFT"><#COLUMN1.FIELD#></TD>
<TD ALIGN="LEFT"><#COLUMN2.FIELD#></TD>
<TD ALIGN="LEFT"><#COLUMN3.FIELD#></TD>
so #COLUMN1.FIELD# must be some kind of array, but I am not finding any documentation anywhere on how to reference the individual values. All I need is the very first value of the COLUMN1 variable. Once I have that value, I can put it where I need it, but I can't get at that value, just the array.
I have searched portal center, the app server documentation, html documentation. I have googled everything I could think of, but came up with nothing. I found a similar question on this forum, but no one responded with an answer. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

Helen,
The best way for your case is to use a content folder and customize it whichever way you like.
however, your question is about reports. the problem in reports is this that you have to use just one single query and the layout of the results of this query are displayed in a peculiar way.
anyway. something similar but not exactly the same as what you wanted do is the following.
use a query like the following: (with a union in between)
SELECT COLUMN1,NULL , NULL ,NULL ,NULL
FROM my_source_table
WHERE myCriteria LIKE 'SoAndSo%'
UNION
SELECT NULL,COLUMN2 , COLUMN3, COLUMN4, COLUMN5
FROM my_source_table
WHERE myCriteria LIKE 'SoAndSo%'
---------- Now, have the following codes in the layout segments:
<!--- header --->
<table border="0" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" width="20%" align="center">
<!--- body --->
<tr align="center">
<td><table border="0" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0" width="30%" align="center">
<tr align="center">
<TH><#COLUMN1.FIELD#></TH>
</tr>
</table>
</td>
<TD class="report_cell" ALIGN="LEFT"><#COLUMN2.FIELD#></TD>
<TD class="report_cell" ALIGN="LEFT"><#COLUMN3.FIELD#></TD>
<TD class="report_cell" ALIGN="LEFT"><#COLUMN4.FIELD#></TD>
<TD class="report_cell" ALIGN="LEFT"><#COLUMN5.FIELD#></TD>
</tr>
<!--- footer --->
<TR><TD></TD></TR>
this should produce a report with a table structure (you may see the whole if you give BORDER="1" in the main table tag). Within this table, the first column of the first row should be showing top-leftmost column value once (COLUMN1 value) and then the next rows would show last four column values as a table block on the right-bottom part.
with kind regards,
naqvi