Order invoices by vendor

Question

I am trying to get a result in XML Publisher, just like Reports does. I am trying to get my datatemplate the right way. this is the thing:
In Reports i create multiple queries and bind them by "WHERE vendorid = :vendor_id1". This way my XML result looks like this:
<Vendor>
  <vendorname />
  <Invoices>
    <invoicedate />
    <invoicenum />
  </Invoices>
  <Invoices>
    <invoicedate />
    <invoicenum />
  </Invoices>
  <Invoices>
    <invoicedate />
    <invoicenum />
  </Invoices>
</Vendor>So the invoices are sorted by vendor. But the thing is, the relations are like this: The Invoice is the master table, which contains invoice info, the vendor_id, and ofcourse info like date, amount etc. So when querying the invoices you get more times the same vendor_id, with a different invoice number. Of course a customer can have more invoices. Now the relation to the vendor table is | Invoices N >-- 1 Vendors |. So this means my output in XMLP is like this:
<Invoice>
  <date />
  <amount />
  <Vendor>
    <name />
    <number />
  </vendor>
</Invoice>
<Invoice>
  <date />
  <amount />
  <Vendor>
    <name />
    <number />
  </vendor>
</Invoice>That is the other way around. This is what i expected it to do, but i cannot think of a way to turn it over. The problem is i guess the link of the vendor ID. Because first you have to query for the vendor_id, and then you can query for the vendor info. but you sort of need it the other way around, but you must be able to sort on vendor, and date.
So can anyone help me with this? I think XMLP can be very powerful, but for now, reports is easyer.

Answer 1

Wel... thats the thing, i have multiple. I am using XML Publisher Enterprise (with the nice GUI) and created multiple DataSets. Then selected this "Concatenated SQL Data Source", and kinda hoped that the queries would come together, which they dont :(. I also tried to make a complete DataTemplate with the XML in it etc. but if I have to create a query like that all the time, it is still easier to use reports. But anyway, i will give a piece of my DataTemplate here.
<dataTemplate name="controle_epn_pay" dataSourceRef="srv-vm-tst">
     <dataQuery>
          <sqlStatement name="Q_ap_invoices_all">
               <![CDATA[SELECT doc_sequence_value
,      invoice_num
,      PAY_GROUP_LOOKUP_CODE
,      PAYMENT_METHOD_LOOKUP_CODE
,      DESCRIPTION
,      vendor_id
,      invoice_id
,      batch_id
FROM ap_invoices_all
WHERE doc_sequence_value LIKE '10110%']]>
          </sqlStatement>
          <sqlStatement name="Q_ap_vendors_v">
               <![CDATA[SELECT vendor_number
,      vendor_name
FROM ap_vendors_v
WHERE vendor_id = :vendor_id]]>
          </sqlStatement>
     </dataQuery>
     <dataStructure>
          <group name="G_invoices_all" source="Q_ap_invoices_all">
               <element name="invoice" value="invoice_num"/>
               <group name="G_vendor" source="Q_ap_vendors_v">
                    <element name="Vendor" value="vendor_name"/>
               </group>
          </group>
     </dataStructure>
</dataTemplate>So now according to the "active" invoice we have a invoice_id, and that invoice_id is used in the vendors query.