Abstract: A reporting system is described herein that allows a report author to declare data reporting structures that specify to a reporting application how to dynamically categorize data with changing or potentially unknown characteristics. The reporting system may extend RDL and the data grouping provided by Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services by adding new elements to the XML-based RDL schema. The reporting system allows the report author to specify for the system to fill gaps in the data, so that the report has a similar layout even as data changes from period to period. The reporting system also allows the report author to specify whether data that does not fit any predefined group bucket is displayed in a report. Thus, the reporting system allows unsophisticated database users to define reports that group data consistently regardless of missing values or other changes in the underlying data.

Abstract: An object data manipulation system is provided. The system includes a definition object model that includes a set of dynamic group definitions over a data hierarchy. A cursor component points to a subset of the data hierarchy, where the subset is loaded into memory for further processing.

Abstract: A rendering system is provided. The rendering system includes a rendering component that receives a request to view a data set and provide output to drive a display application. A processing engine generates output data for the rendering component, where the output data is suitable to satisfy a present demand to render a subset of the data set.

Abstract: An object data manipulation system is provided. The system includes a definition object model that includes a set of dynamic group definitions over a data hierarchy. A cursor component points to a subset of the data hierarchy, where the subset is loaded into memory for further processing.

Abstract: A data access system which includes the capability to categorize subsets of the data in the data store, query result or other source of data as aggregate data or as detail data and also the ability to explicitly re-categorize the aggregate data as detail data, e.g., as part of execution of one or more processes on the data, so that operations that apply to detail data also apply to the re-categorized aggregate data. Additionally, automatic processes are provided for re-categorizing aggregate data as detail data based on data usage context, i.e., based upon how data in the data store is to be manipulated, processed and/or presented according to queries, commands, etc. received by the data store. Calculation of aggregations on top of already pre-aggregated data is enabled, and merging of designated aggregate data with detail data provides increased flexibility in a final dataset.