Reports conversion fails

I have been investigating the CDE tools and as a test recently attempted to convert a complete application from Reportwriter 1.1 to Reports 2.0.13.

59 converted ok.
 7 caused the moverep utility to crash with a general    protection exception (R20MREP.EXE Null selector on read at 0005:2B11) .  8 other reports could not be compiled after conversion    due to a bind variable being undefined.

All these reports utilise the values returned in a query in an adjacent sibling query. Eg in a master detail context with three detail queries the third is used to display the total of a column in detail 1 added to a column in detail 2.

Unfortunately in Reports 2 this is not possible, as a query can only contain references to columns belonging to a group above the query (parent or ancestor ) .

Detail query three consisted of :
SELECT 3,4 from DUAL

where 3 and 4 are the labels for fields F_3 and F_4 - both members of group g_detail3. I was suprised this works, but apparently 3 is taken as an alias for F_3 rather than literally a number of value 3.

F_3 has source &SQL select nvl(:val1,0) from dual F_4 has source &SQL select nvl(:val2,0) from dual

val1 is a column in the first detail query, val2 is a column in the second detail query.

So what is happening is the report is attempting to reference columns out of their context by subterfuge, and r20mrep (the conversion utility) is fooled.

The other reports which failed to compile after conversion suffered from the fact that r20mrep did not create a layout field for every field in the report group (V1.1). A field called page_f source=&Page Group=REPORT was not constructed in the V2 layout. Compilation fails as another field in the V1.1 report contained the source &SQL Select 'Page '||to_char(:page_f). This field included references to page_f after conversion and so PL/SQL compilation fails.

If you are not able to repeat this , please send me personal mail and I will summarise for the group.

Stephen Gerard
Analyst Programmer
QCOM Systems and Software
Brisbane Qld 4000
++61 7 8393544

sjg_at_avalon.qdot.qld.gov.au

<<< My thoughts and opinions only, ... etc >>> Received on Fri May 13 1994 - 09:59:19 CEST