Calling report in Another App

[hjohnson]

If this is just wishful thinking you can tell me I'm crazy, I can take it. But I think I remember reading somewhere about a way of compiling an App that is just report forms and being able to call from another App, but I can't seem to find it now.

What I've got is a application running on the server that 'sees' report requests from users, processes that reports then places the result in a specified folder that they can get to later. The problem is that if a report changes or new ones added, I've got to stop this appication, update it, then restart.

If anyone has done something like this I'd like to get some suggestions.

Thanks

HJ

 

[jimstarr]

Hi HJ,

There's no problem calling one app (or exe) from another. In your case the called app might consist of just the reports plus a main program with a parameter to provide the report name to be run:

PROCEDURE doreport
LPARAMETER reptname
REPORT FORM &reptname TO PRINT
RETURN


In the calling app:

DO doreport WITH 'report1'


Jim

 

[hjohnson]

Thanks,

Does the Report app have to be included in the procedural file somehow. How does the calling app know that the report form is in another app?

 

[jimstarr]

The 2 apps can be completely separate. The calling app must be changed. It can no longer say:

REPORT FORM report1 .......

but rather:

DO reportapp WITH 'report1'


Jim

 

[jimstarr]

Another, maybe simpler approach would be to exclude the reports from the project when you build the exe for your application. Just have these reports (frx's) in the path at runtime. This way when a report changes, all you have to do is replace the frx.

Jim

 

[hjohnson]

Thanks for your help. I think I will move more towards having it in an app rather than having the reports in the path.

Thanks again

 

[crewchiefpro5]

As jimstarr said, It is a bunch easier to update the reports if they are not in the project. This way you don't have to have 2 apps to update and the update files are much smaller. I build apps with a database of reports available, then I send the updated dbf and frt and frx files to the user. They can even update the reports while the exe is running because they are not part of it.

When I build an update file I use self extracting zip files that know what folder they go into ahead of time to speed up this operation.

Just my .02


Don Higgins
Crew Chief Pro Racing Analysis Software

http://www.crewchiefpro.com