Formula Field Outputs Junk Characters

Question

Post Author: mgemmill
CA Forum: .NET
I have a formula that is concatenating string values within a group like so:
// in group header I have formula:
WhilePrintingRecords;
StringVar invoices;
invoices := ""
// in detail field I have formula:
WhilePrintingRecords;
StringVar invoices;
invoices := invoices + {data.INVOICENO} + ", "
// in group footer I have formula:
WhilePrintingRecords;
StringVar invoices;
Left(invoices,Length(invoices) - 2)
The output from this on the report is garbage data.  I have tried a number of things to rectify this: changed the font (same font shows up ok everywhere else), changed the data source (from integer to string and visa versa).  I've noted that the same thing happens with the "Page N of M" formula as well, so I'm thinking this may be a problem with the grouping or aggregate functioning within the report. I have 3 separate groups - SHIPPER, CONSIGNOR, CONSIGNEE (this is a shipping manifest) and I'm doing all my aggregating on the last group.  If I do a simple MIN and MAX aggregate on my INVOICE field the value shows up OK, except that it only shows the first value for the entire report and a COUNT always shows "1".
I'm using the version of Crystal Report that ships with VS 2005.
Any thoughts?

Answer 1

Hi,
  Have seen these things in debugging mode?
If 'YES' when it converts OTF to PDF it will show like that only.
IF 'NO'   may be probelm at this area...
Transfer the 132-long strings to 255-long strings
  LOOP AT it_pdf_output.
    TRANSLATE it_pdf_output USING ' ~'.
    CONCATENATE gd_buffer it_pdf_output INTO gd_buffer.
  ENDLOOP.
  TRANSLATE gd_buffer USING '~ '.
  DO.
    it_mess_att = gd_buffer.
    APPEND it_mess_att.
    SHIFT gd_buffer LEFT BY 255 PLACES.
    IF gd_buffer IS INITIAL.
      EXIT.
    ENDIF.
  ENDDO.