Converting templates for use with different RDBMS

rbuser

Hi,

I'm back onto something you kindly helped me with a while ago...

Like others, I and my clients have created RB templates with one RDBMS which
now need to be converted to work with another.

In our case, it;s usually from Paradox to MSSQL - and the file extension .DB
in the TableName property of various objects doesn't work on SQL.

You pointed me in the direction of
http://www.digital-metaphors.com/tips/ExtractSQLObject.zip which I have
sucessfully used to modify the the SQL code on the fly, and it works well...

It now transpires I have only done half the job as there are a number of
other objects in the DataModule that also need the TableName specifying
correctly e.g. all the TppField, TdaCalculation, TdaCriteria, and TdaTable
objects within the BDEDataPipeline.

Can you provide any sample code to iterate through the other parts of the
DataModule that will enable me to make the changes to all the TableName
properties I need?

Regards,

Pete Colson

nardmoseley

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Tech Tip: Convert BDE Template Dataviews To ADO
-------------------------------------------------

Currently when DADE is used to create dataviews, the DatabaseName is stored
as part of the query definition. (This is consistent with Delphi's approach
to specifying a database connection for a Query object).

When you created the reports originally, the daDBBDE.pas BDE DADE plugin was
used. Now you want to use ADO. You've already changed the
Designer.Datasettings but this had no effect on the old reports. They still
try to use the BDE connection. Changing the Designer.DAtaSettings only works
for new dataviews that are created, because the new query dataviews are
using the daADO.pas ADO DADE plugin.

In order to convert the templates from BDE to ADO, at the minimum you have
to change the database name and the DADE plugin class names that are stored
in the templates. When a BDE dataview is created, its class type is a
TdaBDEQueryDataview. When an ADO dataview is created, its class type is
TdaADOQueryDataview. These class types are stored in the template. These
have to be changed before the template is loaded into a report.

First, compare a BDE report template to an ADO report template which both
connect to the same database table. Save a BDE and an ADO based report
template to separate ASCII text files. Now compare the dataview definitions.
Change the TdaBDEQueryDataview class name to TdaADOQueryDataview in the BDE
template. Change the BDE alias to your ADOConnection object. Then compare
the table name and field names of the BDE template to the ADO template and
change them accordingly, removing the .db extension on the table name is
necessary. Now load the converted BDE template in your ADO end user
application.

The first step is to make a backup of all your templates before continuing
with a programatic approach. You can convert the templates programatically
by loading the ASCII template files to a TStringList object. Then loop
through the lines of the list and change the text programatically. You can
loop through the files in a directory using ppFileUtils.pas calling the
GetFileNamesForDirectory procedure to load the file names.

If you have binary report templates, you'll also be able to convert these
with an extra couple of steps. You can load the binary template file into
ASCII format, modify it, and then save it back to binary as shown in the
example links below. Keep in mind the conversion is performed without
loading the report template into a TppReport.


This example shows how to load reports stored to the ReportExplorer database
tables and convert them to ascii text.

http://www.digital-metaphors.com/tips/EditTemplatesAsText.zip


This example shows how to convert an .rtm file to asii text


http://www.digital-metaphors.com/tips/ConvertBinaryTemplateToASCII.zip



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--
Nard Moseley
Digital Metaphors
http://www.digital-metaphors.com