Crystal Reports 8.5 - Memo/String Field datatype WRONG

[PCSAARON]

This is a continuation of thread: thread766-1081074
Since it was archived, I couldn't add to it.


Ok, as a recap; I have Crystal Reports 8.5 and MySQL Server 4.1.18-nt and MySQL ODBC 3.51.12 Drivers.

It seems when using a "text" field in MySQL, Crystal Reports will only show it as a String of 54 length (String(54)). Why? Is this a problem with Crystal Reports or MySQL? I have verified the database and everything, still the length is 54.

Thanks in advance.

 

[synapsevampire]

That should be a string of 254, not 54.

That's an old version of Crystal, and was resolved in the next version.

If you truly only get 54 characters, I'd guess it to be a problem in the ODBC driver, try upgrading your driver to one of the 5.x version, I assume that they are backward compatible.

A cheat is to create a SQL Expression in Crystal to limit what is being returned to increments of 254 characters, the standard format would be:

substring(table.field,1,254)

substring(table.field,255,254)

etc.

Bringling back as many chunks as you need.

I don't think that MySQL 4.1 supported Views, btu that is also an option, preprocessign the data.

-k

 

[PCSAARON]

I will try that, however I do want a memo field (eaning I would like it to be more than 255 characters). I just hope the MySQL ODBC 5.0 set will not cause problem...

Thanks.

 

[synapsevampire]

What do you mean by the "MySQL ODBC 5.0 set", do you mean thet ODBC driver?

I doubt that the 5.X driver would have problems with 4.X, but check first.

My constant line about MySQL is that it just isn't ready for primetime.

-k

 

[PCSAARON]

Yeah, thats for sure. I uninstalled the older odbc drivers and installed th latest from their site and I am getting all sorts of problems with Crystal Reports. When you pu the ODBC connection in it (username, password, server) The drop down for the database to select shows garbage characters. That can't be right for sure.

I am having this problem with several reports now. I used SELECT LEFT(memo,20) FROM TABLE in the query to pull the memo field in. I have not tried more characters than this yet since I only really need 20 for this one report.

I thought I would update my progress. Any other suggestions will gladly be accepted. Thanks.