Calling report with desformat prt file

Question

Hello.
First some background:
According to forms and reports documentation, when you want to call a character mode report (MODE=Character) when DESTYPE=FILE and DESNAME=filename using a printer definition file (prt file) you set DESFORMAT=name_of_prt_file
I assumed that this is done from forms with:
SET_REPORT_OBJECT_PROPERTY(report_id,REPORT_DESFORMAT,'prt_file')
examples of possible values for prt_file : hpl, hplwide, dec, decwide, decland, dec180, dflt, wide, etc.
This works fine.
Now the problem:
The report is run in a secure reports server using the default security, that is, Portal security.
In this configuration, the reports fails with a security error:
"Cannot access the output format:rep_ind"
(rep_ind is the name or the prt file)
According to Portal documentation, you must set the Format to "Character" and define DESFORMAT=name_of_prt_file.
Does it mean that Format defined in Portal is not the same that DESFORMAT?
If i try from forms
SET_REPORT_OBJECT_PROPERTY(report_id,REPORT_DESFORMAT,'CHARACTER');
the security error is gone but i obtain instead:
"Unable to open printer definition file 'CHARACTER'"
If i try the above SET_REPORT_OBJECT_PROPERTY and also set REPORT_OTHER 'DESFORMAT=rep_ind'
the security error shows again.
That is logical since the call to SET_REPORT_OBJECT_PROPERTY
was "overriden" by setting REPORT_OTHER.
The question is: how do you set Format (as understood by portal) to "Character" and DESFORMAT to name_of_prt_file?
I think this question is not in the wrong forum since it is related to forms, although it depends strongly in Portal idiosyncracies.
Any comments are welcome.
Thanks.

Answer 1

Hi Sasidhar
you are right taking into account the possible problem of the location of prt file, that must be in a directory referenced in REPORTS_PATH.
But the problem is in the way portal defines the acceptable output formats and how achieve that from forms.
In this case, Portal uses "Character" as Format and an additional DESFORMAT parameter defines the name or prt file.
From forms, we can set DESFORMAT, but: what is the name of the parameter that portal understands as "Format" to set it to "Character"?
The documentation for forms and reports only define DESFORMAT and
SET_REPORT_OBJECT_PROPERTY(report_id,REPORT_DESFORMAT...)
set that value.
I assumed that DESFORMAT, as defined in reports and forms documentation, was the same that "Format" as defined in Portal.
Thanks.