What on earth is going in with Crystal Reports![resloved]

[RichardAtherton]

I'm sure that you like me have used the Crystal Reports Designer to develop reports. Great, except when it comes to deployment. My own expereince, is that crystal reports claims, but cannot deliver different datasourses at run time:

My own example developed using sqlserver, delivered to an Access Database.

No reports works

and yes followed the exact example to use the 'push' method to fill a dataset and populate the report data from that never ever worked.

If anyone has practical working code examples please post, if anyone has had similar expereinces and half an answer, please post.

If anyone has a half sensible suggestion please post.

Head andbrick wall, are the phrases that come to mind and if you want calritysample code I've tried then also please post,

[Edneeis]

I've gotten this to work using SQL Server as a backend and just dynamically changing the User Credentials and using XML as the backend dumped into a DataSet. I'll try to extract some sample code from those projects within the next day or so for ya.

A quick hint from memory though:
For the SQL one I had to change the Database Logon Info for each table in the report using a For each loop. Using XML the trick is to back an XML Schema and then use that at designtime to create the report instead of setting the backend to an actual Dataset.

[Edneeis]

Here is the example I promised. It shows how to change the server name at runtime for a report (could also change the login info) and how to use a report based on a schema, passing the dataset in at runtime for data. Sorry i didn't put a lot of comments but if you have questions just ask. There is a SQL script in there to build the SQL database and table needed for the example.

[RichardAtherton]

thanks, I will take a look at it now, but can someone please tell me, why Crystal reportsgives you theoption to set the datasource at runtimeand plainly, it just does not work!!!, in spite of the examples they give you

[Edneeis]

It does work as you will see in the example. I show two different ways to do it too. Although I must say that Crystal Reports tutorials can be a bit lacking.

[RichardAtherton]

Finally I have resolved this and no I am not trhe author, but one reading of chapter 14 of this guys book solved all my problems and yoou can judge for yourself, the URL is www.crystalreportsbook.com

My very basic mistake was that when I designed the rports, I would choose my database source as say ADO.net and then OLEDB

Wrong what I should have done was to add an item to my project as an XML dataset which describes the structure of the data not its source.

Then of course at runtime I can populate a dataset and use that. Simple when you know how.
a
If you do not have secure logon then ally ou need to dois to set the datasource, yes with secure logon you have to create connectionino and logoniunfo, also well explained.

This had frustrated me for the last 2 months. If this posting saves nyone the wasted time and effort I've suffered, I'm the happpiest person alive today. The sheer heartache and stuggle with Crystal Reports hase been endless, such a good product so why are they so stingy with documentation. Is this a sinsister plot for us to allgo out and buy a seperate Crystal Reports licence, I got very close to that at times.

[SaraL]

I just wanna thank you for that link, it was really helpful!!!

/Sara

[RichardAtherton]

appreciate your reply, that problem dogged me for 2 months and I thought one last go at solving it and found the link to that book and hey presto everthing solved in 2 hours, why or why didn'tcrystal reports give decent examples. Ah never mind just glad it helped you.

Oh by the way if ever you install an applicaion that includes crystalreports on windows98, it needs a dlll called dbghelp.dll otherwise you get the message "load report failed" and it needs to be installed in the Windows\System32 directory.It will be on your own machine and you just need to copy it onto the target machine

[RichardAtherton]

appreciate your reply, that problem dogged me for 2 months and I thought one last go at solving it and found the link to that book and hey presto everthing solved in 2 hours, why or why didn'tcrystal reports give decent examples. Ah never mind just glad it helped you.

Oh by the way if ever you install an applicaion that includes crystalreports on windows98, it needs a dll called dbghelp.dll otherwise you get the message "load report failed" and it needs to be installed in the Windows\System32 directory.It will be on your own machine and you just need to copy it onto the target machine

[RichardAtherton]

appreciate your reply, that problem dogged me for 2 months and I thought one last go at solving it and found the link to that book and hey presto everthing solved in 2 hours, why or why didn'tcrystal reports give decent examples. Ah never mind just glad it helped you.

Oh by the way if ever you install an applicaion that includes crystalreports on windows98, it needs a dll called dbghelp.dll otherwise you get the message "load report failed" and it needs to be installed in the Windows\System32 directory.It will be on your own machine and you just need to copy it onto the target machine

[RichardAtherton]

appreciate your reply, that problem dogged me for 2 months and I thought one last go at solving it and found the link to that book and hey presto everthing solved in 2 hours, why or why didn'tcrystal reports give decent examples. Ah never mind just glad it helped you.

Oh by the way if ever you install an applicaion that includes crystalreports on windows98, it needs a dll called dbghelp.dll otherwise you get the message "load report failed" and it needs to be installed in the Windows\System32 directory.It will be on your own machine and you just need to copy it onto the target machine