Hi

Not sure if my problem relates to ACE Reporter (v2.05) or to the migration
from DBISAM3 to ElevateDB (v2.14 B2) or neither!

In DBISAM3 I have a field defined like this:-

"TransMemo" MEMO,

I ran the migrator and it redefined the field as:-

"TransMemo" CLOB COLLATE "UNI",

The data looks correct in EDBMgr and my application displays it correctly in
TDBMemos.

BUT in my ACE Reports only the first character of the field is displayed.

The field in one of the many reports looks like this in the .DFM:-

object tenantheldrptqueryTransMemoVar: TSctDBVar [20]
 Left = 311
 Top = -130
 Width = 0
 Height = 0
 DataField = 'TransMemo'
 DataSource = TenantHeldRptQueryDS
 UpdateLevel = DetailBandlevel
 AutoVar = False
 ID = vidAutoDataVar
end

and the print variable looks like this:-

object TransMemo: TSctvarlabel
 Left = 202
 Top = 0
 Width = 520
 Height = 17
 WrapText = True
 Stretch = True
 Variable = tenantheldrptqueryTransMemoVar
end

The report is the result of an SQL Query  (code posted below my sig)  - but
this is unchanged between versions and contains nothing fancy.

Any suggestions as to what might be the problem?

Cheers

Jeff

--
Jeff Cook
Aspect Systems Ltd
www.aspect.co.nz


==================================
SELECT IF((NOT T.VacateDate IS NULL) AND (T.VacateDate <= CURRENT_DATE) THEN
'Vacated Tenants' ELSE 'Current Tenants') AS TenantGroup,
      T.SortKey, T.TenantCode, T.VacateDate,
      -TT.Held AS Held, TT.TransDate, TT.TransNo, TT.TransType,
TT.TransSeq, TT.TransText, TT.TransMemo, TT.Period, TT.Sequence,
      P.Managed, P.PropertyCode, P.StreetNumber, P.StreetName, P.Suburb
FROM  Tenants T
JOIN TenantTrans TT ON T.TenantCode = TT.TenantCode
JOIN Properties P ON T.PropertyCode = P.PropertyCode
LEFT OUTER JOIN Portfolios Pf ON Pf.PortfolioCode = P.PortfolioCode
LEFT OUTER JOIN PropertyManagers M ON M.PMCode = Pf.PMCode
WHERE TT.Period >= 1 AND TT.Period <= 500
ORDER BY T.SortKey, TT.Period, TT.TransDate, TT.TransNo
--------------------------------------------------------------

Jeff,

I'm not familiar with Ace Reporter so I can only comment on the obvious.

When you execute the query in EDBMgr:

SELECT IF((NOT T.VacateDate IS NULL) AND (T.VacateDate <= CURRENT_DATE) THEN
'Vacated Tenants' ELSE 'Current Tenants') AS TenantGroup,
      T.SortKey, T.TenantCode, T.VacateDate,
      -TT.Held AS Held, TT.TransDate, TT.TransNo, TT.TransType,
TT.TransSeq, TT.TransText, TT.TransMemo, TT.Period, TT.Sequence,
      P.Managed, P.PropertyCode, P.StreetNumber, P.StreetName, P.Suburb
FROM  Tenants T
JOIN TenantTrans TT ON T.TenantCode = TT.TenantCode
JOIN Properties P ON T.PropertyCode = P.PropertyCode
LEFT OUTER JOIN Portfolios Pf ON Pf.PortfolioCode = P.PortfolioCode
LEFT OUTER JOIN PropertyManagers M ON M.PMCode = Pf.PMCode
WHERE TT.Period >= 1 AND TT.Period <= 500
ORDER BY T.SortKey, TT.Period, TT.TransDate, TT.TransNo

1) Do you see the full contents of the CLOB field? (Double click on the field in the results pane and a window pops up).

2) For "object tenantheldrptqueryTransMemoVar: TSctDBVar [20] "

What happens when you edit the Form as text and change it from:
 Top = -130
 Width = 0
 Height = 0

to:
 Top = 0
 Width = 520
 Height = 17

?

Barry

Jeff,

<< BUT in my ACE Reports only the first character of the field is displayed.
>>

The most likely explanation is that the ACE Reporter version that you're
using doesn't support Unicode strings.  You'll get the same thing if you try
to use a Unicode CLOB with a version like Delphi 7 and its TMemo (using
2.15).  The NULL leading bytes in the Unicode string's 2-byte character
pairs for characters <= #255 cause the problem.

Tim Young
Elevate Software
www.elevatesoft.com

Thanks Barry and Tim

I have just heard back from Steve Tyrakowski, the ACE Reporter guy and he
says:-

"The single character issue is suspiciously pointing to Unicode where the
second
zero byte is seen as a string terminator.

We need to determine if the issue is with the libraries or with the
conversion
process.

If you are able to reproduce the issue with a simple app, please send us the
PAS and DFM and a small copy of the table with just a few records."

.... so I'll get a demo organised for them.

Sounds like Tim and Steve are on the same page.

Apologies for the delay in answering - public holiday yesterday (Waitangi
Day).

Cheers

Jeff

--
Jeff Cook
Aspect Systems Ltd
www.aspect.co.nz

Hi

This article needs a new title as I has proved it not to be an ACE Reporter problem - just a "me" problem yet to be solved.

I should have seen it sooner, but I now see that many but not all TDBMemo's in the application are also truncating the display at "one character".

I have found that if I change the Blob Type to ftWideMemo, then the truncated memos display correctly BUT not all fields need to be changed to display correctly.  

For some reason ftMemo works OK with some fields and not with others even though the Migrator has changed all the fields to CLOB.

Moreover, this little bit of code (that has been working for 15 years since BDE!)  now doesn't work:-
----------------------------------------------------
     slWarning.Text := apmDM.LandlordLookUpInternalComment.AsString;
     mainStatusBar.SimpleText := 'WARNING - ';
     if slWarning.Count > 0 then
       mainStatusBar.SimpleText :=
         mainStatusBar.SimpleText + slWarning[0];
---------------------------------------------------
where slWarning is a TStringList.

I find that apmDM.LandlordLookUpInternalComment.AsString is returning

'C'#0'l'#0'i'#0'c'#0'k'#0' '#0't'#0'h'#0'e'#0' '#0'D'#0'e'#0't'#0'a'#0'i'#0'l'#0's'#0' '#0'b'#0'u'#0't'#0't'#0'o'#0'n'#0' '#0'f'#0'o'#0'r'#0' '#0't'#0'h'#0'e'#0' '#0'p'#0'u'#0'r'#0'p'#0'o'#0's'#0'e'#0' '#0'o'#0'f'#0' '#0't'#0'h'#0'i'#0's'#0'  etc.etc.

Instead of 'Click the Details button for the purpose of this account ... etc. etc.'

I get the same result with .AsWideString.   So I'm likely to have problems lurking in code that doesn't lead to an obvious display problem.

Bearing in mind that this is a Unicode db, can I safely do a mass change of ftMemo to ftWideMemo to eliminate some of my problems?  (I have 117 occurrences of ftMemo in 62 .DFM files)

Cheers

Jeff

Jeff,

<< I have found that if I change the Blob Type to ftWideMemo, then the
truncated memos display correctly BUT not all fields need to be changed to
display correctly. >>

They should if you're trying to load Unicode characters into them.  All
"English" Unicode characters (< #255) are going to have a leading #0 byte.

<< For some reason ftMemo works OK with some fields and not with others even
though the Migrator has changed all the fields to CLOB. >>

ftMemo, as opposed to what ?

<< Moreover, this little bit of code (that has been working for 15 years
since BDE!)  now doesn't work:- >>

What type of field (TFieldType) is the apmDM.LandlordLookUpInternalComment
field using ?  It should be ftWideString, not ftString.  ftString is an
AnsiString type, and won't work properly for Unicode databases.

<< Bearing in mind that this is a Unicode db, can I safely do a mass change
of ftMemo to ftWideMemo to eliminate some of my problems?  (I have 117
occurrences of ftMemo in 62 .DFM files) >>

Yes, but you need to also do a mass change of ftString to ftWideString, and
the same for ftFixedChar to ftFixedWideChar.

Am I correct that you took a DBISAM 3 database (which uses 100% AnsiStrings)
and migrated it to a *Unicode* ElevateDB database and expected your existing
code to work exactly the same ?  If so, then that is not an accurate
expectation.

Tim Young
Elevate Software
www.elevatesoft.com

Thanks Tim for your comments.  

I have sorted out most of the problems with my mass changes to "Wide" field types.  My remaining problem I will post under a new Subject" as the reference to ACE is now redundant.

Cheers

Jeff