>There is such and such. It depends on your needs.
>I try to do as much as I can external of the report using SQL SELECT, creating a big fat cursor that I push into the report. Just for the purpose of the report. The report simply read the fields.

>Anyway, there are problems one can solve better by SCAN - well the report is a kind of SCAN, so I use the report vars.
>
>So yes for a SUM I would calc this externally in a SQL SELECT.

I would go even further with gentle cursor massage: where scan from report might be used with hickups like bands in or outside page breaks I often opt to build even running totals inside the cursor with stage table typical steps or even a scan over the cursor again before report.
Side benefit 1: I have something to save or compare with
Side benefit 2: target of eventual facepalms known ahead ;-)