title: Text input through SSRS parameter including a Field name
body: <p>I have a SSRS "statement" type report that has general layout of text boxes and tables.  For the main text box I want to let the user supply the value as a parameter so the text can be customized, i.e.</p>
  
  <pre><code>Parameters!MainText.Value = "Dear Mr.Doe, Here is your statement."
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>then I can set the text box value to be the value of the parameter:</p>
  
  <pre><code>=Parameters!MainText.Value
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>However, I need to be able to allow the incoming parameter value to include a dataset field, like so:</p>
  
  <pre><code>Parameters!MainText.Value = "Dear Mr.Doe, Here is your [Fields!RunDate.Value] statement"  
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>so that my report output would look like:</p>
  
  <p>"Dear Mr.Doe, Here is your November statement."</p>
  
  <p>I know that you can define it to do this in the text box by supplying the static text and the field request, but I need SSRS to recognize that inside the <strong><em>parameter</em></strong> string there is a field request that needs to be escaped and bound.</p>
  
  <p>Does anyone have any ideas for this?  I am using SSRS 2008R2</p>