Using Message Field and Formatting Date field in message as required

Using message fields

Message Fields let you mix dynamic and static text, sort of like a combined Label and Text Field. Here's an example:

The date is $(report.date, date, d MMMM yyyy)

This will show in the report as:

The date is 6 November 2008

The first part ("The date is") is static. The variable afterwards has three sections:

1. The field to use. Here we are using the internal function 'report.date' to give the current date, but you could also use a field from the database query.
2. The data type. This data is of type 'date'.
3. The format in which to display the data.