Problem with Variables in Release 7.0

rbuser

I have a strange problem with reports that were designed in version 6.03 and
are now being used in version 7. When a variable is used to concatenate a
couple of string fields (for example, first names and surnames) the
on-screen preview appears correctly but when the report is printed the field
name appears instead of the contents (for example, "variable1"). I have
tried recreating the variable but the same happens. What could this be due
to?

Mike Combellack

digitalmetaphors

A variable component will return its' UserName as the string representation
when in "design" mode. However, when printing (or previewing) it should
always return the result of the OnCalc event. I would try running the RAP
examples in ...RBuilder\Demos\0. RAP. I believe the first example is
concatenation. This example works for me but I would be interested to see if
you can get it to work...

Cheers,

Tom Ollar
Digital Metaphors Corporation

rbuser

Thank you for the reply. I have since found a few more details...

On my development machine, the problem does not occur.
My clients have this problem only when the result of the variable is an
empty string (i.e. in the concatenation example, both strings are empty). In
this case, the name of the variable is printed.

My application was repackaged with the version 7 bpls for distribution, but
on the client machines the old ones were, undoubtedly, not deleted. Could
this be a reason? If not, any other ideas?

Regards

Mike Combellack

digitalmetaphors

Just ran example 14 in the RAP demos (concatenation.) When returning an
empty string *and* printing to printer I am able to reproduce this. Should
be able to get a fix for this tomorrow...

Cheers,

Tom Ollar
Digital Metaphors Corporation

digitalmetaphors

After further testing, I am not able to reproduce this problem in RB 7
Enterprise for D6. Tom and I used the same printer and operating system -
Win 2K and an HP LJ 5.

I ran the latest version available from our website and also the latest
in-development builds we have for Enterprise and Server Editions for Delphi
6. Everythign ran perfectly. I tested at Delphi design time and also at
runtime using both the installed RBuilder\Lib dcus and then the
RBuilder\Source pas files.

Please follow the corrupt installation directions to ensure that there are
no old RB files located on your machines that are experiencing the problem.
Your installation exe should be dated 9/2/2002. The old versions of the bpls
may be causing the problem. They should be automatically deleted when
running the uninstallation scripts of RB, but your user's machine probably
has the older *66.bpls instead of the newer *76.bpls. Make sure the *66.bpls
are deleted.


Cheers,

Jim Bennett
Digital Metaphors

--------------------------------------------
Article: Cleaning up a Corrupt Installation
--------------------------------------------

If you have been advised by Digital Metaphors technical support that you may
have a corrupt installation, or if you are having difficulty installing,
compiling or running applications after a ReportBuilder install, then it may
be necessary to manually remove all ReportBuilder files from your system.
Corrupt installations usually result when you are installing over a previous
version of ReportBuilder which was not installed into the default directory,
which was recompiled from the source, or when ReportBuilder files were
manually moved from the default install location. Cleaning up a corrupt
installation, consists of locating all ReportBuilder related files, and
deleting them from your system. The first step is to use the uninstall
program to remove as much of ReportBuilder as possible.


Run the uninstall program

1. Exit Delphi, and all other applications. You should have no applications
running except the uninstall, otherwise you may lose some of your work.

2. Select Start | Settings | Control Panel from your Windows desktop.

3. Double-click the Add/Remove programs icon.

4. Locate the version of ReportBuilder you wish uninstall and double-click
it.

5. The first page of the Uninstall Wizard allows you to choose between an
Automatic or Custom uninstall. Choose Custom and click the Next button.

6. Click the Select All button, then the Next button. Repeat these steps
until you reach the last page of the wizard.

7. Click the Finish button. All of the items you selected will be removed
from the system.

8. After all the ReportBuilder files are removed, you may be prompted to
reboot the system. If this is the case, reboot the system.


Delete the ReportBuilder root directory (and all subdirectories)

1. Using the Windows Explorer, locate the ReportBuilder root directory. The
default directory is:

C:\Program Files\Borland\DelphiX\RBuilder

2. Once you have located this directory, inspect it. If you have any custom
work in this directory which you would like to keep, move it to another
directory.

3. Delete the ReportBuilder root directory.


Delete all remaining ReportBuilder files

1. Using the Windows Explorer, search the entire hard drive for all
occurrences of:

dclRB*.bpl
dclRB*.dcp
rb*.bpl
rb*.dcp

2. Delete any occurrences which correspond to the version you are removing.
All packages are named with the convention NN, where the first number
is the ReportBuilder version and the second number is the Delphi version.
Thus, a typical package name for Delphi 5 would be rbRCL45.bpl. The same
package for Delphi 4 would be: rbRCL44.bpl. Check Installing ReportBuilder
for a list of the packages associated with each version.

3. Using the Windows Explorer, search your hard drive for all occurrences
of:

pp*.*
da*.*
ra*.*

4. These are the prefixes used by individual ReportBuilder units. 'pp' is
used for ReportBuilder units, 'da' is used for DADE units, and 'ra' is used
for RAP units. Depending on which ReportBuilder you have (Standard,
Professional or Enterprise) you may not have all of these unit types.



Additional Notes

1. Never have Delphi running when installing ReportBuilder.

2. All ReportBuilder related files should be stored in the root directory
$(DELPHI)\RBuilder.

3. All ReportBuilder run-time packages should be stored in the
Windows\System directory.

4. You should never have ReportBuilder files in Delphi\Lib, Delphi\Bin or
Delphi\Projects\Bpl.

--
Tech Support mailto:support@digital-metaphors.com
Digital Metaphors http://www.digital-metaphors.com

rbuser

This continues to be a problem for me, although I do notice that no-one else
has reported it! I have reinstalled RB7 "cleanly" and rebuilt the whole
application. I have distributed it to the clients and cleaned their machines
of any old bpls. Even so, some, but not all, of the clients report the same
problem when printing - the variable fields (usually a concatenation) change
to the name of the variable or print completely blank This happens even if
the fields to be concatenated are not blank. Any ideas, before I have to
revert to RB 6!

Mike Combellack