Oracle Report*Writer Question - '.' in char fields.

Hello:

I am experiencing a strange problem when it comes to writing reports with '.' characters in the fields. It seems RPT/RPF adds extra spaces if it sees the '.' character. This makes for some strange looking reports:

This is probably easier to explain by example, so:

BIRTH_DATE A8
GENDER A6
JOB_TITLE A16
JOB_DESC A30
----8--- ---6-- -------16------- --------------30--------------

03/17/67  Male    Dishwasher        Dishwasher - won't do windows!
04/22/68  Male    Asst. Sec. Dir.   Assist. Secretary to Director
05/21/69  Female  Coord. Spcl. Svc  Coord. Spcl. Svcs. to Bd. Offc

The above hypothetical records are stored in the database exactly as shown. Theoretically, they should appear on the report this way...but they don't.

I get something more along the lines of:

----8--- ---6-- -------16------- --------------30--------------

03/17/67  Male    Dishwasher        Dishwasher - won't do windows!
04/22/68  Male    Asst.  Sec.       Assist.  Secretary to Director
                  Dir.
05/21/69  Female  Coord.  Spcl.     Coord.  Spcl.  Svcs.  to Bd.
                  Svc               Offc

This makes for some ugly reports!

Any ideas of why this is happening and how to avoid this?

Thanks...

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Steve Frampton               Home:   <frampton_at_vicuna.ocunix.on.ca>
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