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Crystal dictionary Migration

Former Member
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Dear Experts,

Can you help me out how to migrate Crystal Dictionary File in any other dataformat like mdb or xml file format.

Is there any API or SDK sample example to do convert it into dataset.

Is it possible to set crystal dictinary dc5 file to crystal report as a datasource at runtime ?

Thanks in advance.

Regards

Jalpesh

Accepted Solutions (1)

Accepted Solutions (1)

Former Member
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Hi,

Need more details-

VS version - (.net)?

CR version?

If you want to use any runtime functionality then you need to use RAS SDK's.

I don't have much idea about RAS, hence you can take help from [Sample codes|https://boc.sdn.sap.com/codesamples]

You can also take help from [Dev library|https://boc.sdn.sap.com/node/7770]

Hope this helps!!

Regards,

Amit

Former Member
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Hi,

Thanks for your reply,

I am working in .net 2.0 and crystal report 8.5 version.

In my code I have written

CRAXDRT.Application app = new CRAXDRT.Application(); IReport rpt = app.OpenReport(@"C:\Jalpesh\custsupp.rpt", 1);

DatabaseTables databaseTables = rpt.Database.Tables;

CRAXDRT.TableLinks links = rpt.Database.Links;

Report custsupp.rpt file contains the crystal dictionary as a datasource.

From DatabaseTables I am able to get all tables which are used in dictionary, but unable to ge the TableLinks, it shows 0 links in table relationship.

Is there any other method where we can directly open the crystal dictionary dc5 file by API ?

Thanks,

Jalpesh.

former_member183750
Active Contributor
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1) As dc5 files were never meant to be used in any development at all, I would be surprised is this worked without issues

2) As CR 8.5 and dc5 have been out of support for close to 7 years, it will be quite hard to find anyone that has any expertise in this

3) You are using the Report Designer Component (craxdrt.dll) in .NET. The RDC has not been tested in .NET and as such is not supported in .NET of any version

Perhaps you will have better luck searching the notes section here:

https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/businessobjects-notes

however I have not been able to find much there either.

Ludek

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Hi Jalps,

Crystal Dictionaries are simply Database Views. All we can suggest is you open the Cr Dictionaries in the Dictionary Designer to get the info out and then you'll have to create a new report. There is no way to convert a report that used a Dictionary to hit the database directly.

Setting the database logo on info would propogate the info to Dictionaries in the SDK's but that was the only allowed setting. We had no exposed API's available to do anything other than setting the log on info in any of our SDK's.

Only option is to rebuild the reports.

Don

Answers (3)

Answers (3)

Former Member
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Thanks for reply,

I want to make a tool which can convert the crystal dictionary dc5 file to microsoft reporting service (xml schema) in any programming language which support crystal API.

Can you please give me suggestion of how to do this thing possible ?

0 Kudos

Sorry Jalps,

There is no current API set that will allow you to decode the DC5 files. I now recall there was some tool way back in Crystal Reports version 5 days that did export the DC5 to a text file. I don't recall how much details there were though. I'll have to go looking to see if anyone still has it.

Stay tuned.

Don

former_member183750
Active Contributor
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Yup. The DIT tool. You'll be looking for Crystal Info version 5 or version 6. Good luck Don!

Ludek

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I have not found the DIT tool but I now recall it didn't include specific details on the links. I also went back into the internal header file for our report engines and they too do not return the links but they are all defined as Advanced - we did not touch the SQL so point in returning it to CR. It does however show the tables and fields linked as you also discovered.

Result is there is no way to get the info.

Former Member
0 Kudos

Hi,

Thanks for your kindly support,

If I convert the dc5 file to civ file or business view in the next version of crystal report, then Is there any solution API to migrate it in xml or mdb file structure ?

Thanks & Regards,

Jalpesh

Edited by: Jalps on Sep 24, 2008 12:02 PM

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Hi Jalps,

Again sorry, still no option. CIV file type is the same as dc5 only for use in Seagate Info. It was a way SI had the ability to use and set location using an internal API to set the log on info so SI could run the reports.

We were well aware of the limitations to get the info from our Dictionaries at the time they were deprecated using our SDK's but it was determined it was simply easier to re-build the reports than to create a conversion tool and a new set of API's. The reason is the Dictionary Designer was simply a View designer and could be considered a stand alone application. CR had no direct interaction with the SQL the DD created, we simply waited for the result set to be returned.

What CR would have to do is create look up tables for ALL databases so we could map their tables and functions to our SQL generator. Of course this would have been a VERY LARGE project which would create all sorts of issues in the future. If the DB driver changed the functionality of the SQL generated we would have to follow. Way too much to manage and impossible to maintain.

The DIRECT replacement for using DC5's is using the Command Object in CR Designer, again it's a way to directly enter in SQL and CR simply passes that SQL directly to the server to process. Unforetunately for the reason I stated above we have no field and table mapping functions built into CR when using Command objects either if you want to change the report to use the tables directly, so there is no mapping functionality and the reports would have to be re-built.

Knowing this the Developers did add the ability to copy and paste report objects from one report designer/report to another one that's open.

I am going to close this post as there is no work around other than to re-build the reports.

Thanks again

Don

former_member183750
Active Contributor
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Is it possible to set crystal dictionary dc5 file to crystal report as a datasource at runtime ?

No it is not, never was. Certainly it was never supported or recommended to use dictionaries at runtime. You could run a report from a runtime app against a dictionary, as long as the dictionary did not move. E.G.; as soon as you installed the app on another computer, if the dictionary was not available there, you were out of luck. And moving dictionaries was not supported or recommended and if you did try it, full of headaches. (There may be a note (kbase) on how to try and move dictionaries, but I'd keep away from that.)

There are no APIs to convert dictionaries to any other data format. Only thing you may want to look at, would be running a report version that supports dictionaries (I have no idea what the last version to support dictionaries was) and export the report to CSV or perhaps even to an ODBC data source. In that way you may be able to retrieve some of the date from the dictionary.

Ludek

Former Member
0 Kudos

Thanks for your reply,

Is it possible to load or open crystal dictionary dc5 file to read the table's filed and data table's link relationship ?

As I have loaded the report file which has dictionary as a datasource, I am able to get the tables and field of tables, but unable to get the table's link. It shows 0 table link.

Thanks,

Jalpesh

ted_ueda
Active Contributor
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I don't think there's any tools with our current versions that would work with Crystal Dictionaries - they're there for backwards compatibility, but I'm not aware of any way of working with them.

Sincerely,

Ted Ueda