Re: Using Crystal Reports to call an Oracle package?

hlngus_at_hotmail.com (Yvonne G) wrote in

> I'm getting an "Error in compling SQL Expression: syntax error found here",
> when calling an Oracle package using Crystal Reports, which I believe is
> just Crystal saying it can't read the package.
>
> The function basically converts a float number into a text string
> that indicates which of 30 flags are being set.
> It runs fine from within TOAD.
>
> I'm using Crystal 8.0.1.1 and Oracle 8.01.06 and ODBC (pdsodbc.dll)

The key I think is the word "compiling" in the error message. That, and the fact that there is no ORA error number or message.

It seems that either Crystal or ODBC "interferes" with the statement - does some kind of pre-check of the SQL and find that it does not meet their expectations. This error thus has nothing to do with Oracle (it never gets that far).

Not unusual. ODBC especially has a very nasty habit of doing exactly that.

A partial fix is to use "ODBC Pass Through". This is a flag/param that is set programming wise when using ODBC. Not sure if this is exposed as a configurable option by Crystal. But even with passthru enabled, there can still be problems (e.g. how the ODBC driver deals with characters like ? and : in column labels and literals)

--
Billy