Working with External objects

[HendersonS]

Hi everyone. Lately, we've been working with third-party objects to interact with xmlsig, CR reports, etc., and we're having the same problem when passing a value to a method that requires another object as its constructor, or when passing a boolean value to the method. Does anyone know how we should handle these kinds of interactions? Thanks in advance.

Example with cr reports:

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!
 DEF OBJECT CR_APP,"CrystalRuntime.Application"
 LET REPORT=CR_APP'OPENREPORT("C:\temp\customers.rpt") ! // This opens the report and creates the 'Report' object
 !
 LET EXP=REPORT'EXPORTOPTIONS
 LET EXP'DESTINATIONTYPE=1
 LET EXP'FORMATTYPE=31 ! pdf
 LET EXP'PDFEXPORTALLPAGES=-1
 LET EXP'DISKFILENAME$="C:\temp\customers.pdf")
 !CR Expects a boolean (true or false) !false no show dialog
 REPORT'EXPORT(0) ! this give an error 88 Invalid/unknown property name
example with xmlsig:

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DEF OBJECT SIG,"Chilkat.XmlDSigGen.11" ! xmlsigner object
DEF OBJECT CERT,"Chilkat.Cert.11" ! cert object
LET CERT'LOADPFXFILE("C:\temp\cert.p12","pass")
LET C=CERT'LOADPFXFILE("C:\temp\cert.p12","pass") ! also we try this
LET SIG'SETX509CERT(CERT,1) ! this give an error 88 Invalid/unknown property name
LET SIG'SETX509CERT(C,1) !this give an error 88 Invalid/unknown property name ! also we try this

[James Zukowski]

Have you tried passing "true" or "false" instead of 1 or 0?

[HendersonS]

hi james, yes, we have tried with: true,false,"true","false",$00$,-1,0, and in all cases we get the same error.

[Devon Austen]

Check the properties and methods available to pxplus by doing a

print EXP'*
or
print SIG'*

You can verify that Export() and SETX509CERT() are methods.

Other things to debug is check msg(-1) after you get the error for any more detailed error info. You could also checked

print EXP'PvxError$ for the same.

[Astecom - Koen]

No idea about the report issue, using a 1 or 0 for True of False generally works.

The xmlsig issue can probably be fixed by prefixing cert with a *:
LET SIG'SETX509CERT(*CERT,1)

Passing a COM-object to another COM-object needs a * prefix.

[HendersonS]

Hi Koe, thanks for your help. Adding * to the constructor worked correctly.



Devon,about the other issue, i can confirm that this method exists. In fact, if we try it without arguments like report'export(), it works, but it displays a dialog box, and we don't want that, I have attached an image of what msg(-1) tells me, but it doesn't give me any indication of how to fix it or what might be causing the exception.

[Devon Austen]

You will have to look at the documentation for the COM object method you are trying to execute. Maybe the arg list is different then you expect?

[HendersonS]

Devon, According to the documentation, I should send true or false. I even tested it with PowerShell and VB.NET, and it works by sending the parameter false, so the problem seems to be in how PXPlus sends the value to the method.

[Mike King]

The routine may require that you explicitly pass a boolean.  If so you can likely define a *VARIANT object, set its type to boolean and value then pass that.

Here is some information on *VARIANT

https://manual.pvxplus.com/PXPLUS/Automation%20in%20PxPlus/PxPlus%20COM%20Interface%20Extensions/Overview.htm#variant

[HendersonS]

Mike, thanks for your reply. Could you give me an example of how to pass a boolean value false because my attempts are receiving the same error?

We try:

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DEF OBJECT V,"*VARIANT"
LET V'TYPE$="B"
LET V'VAL$="0"
! LET V'VAL$="FALSE" !ALSO TRY THIS
REPORT'EXPORT(*V)
!REPORT'EXPORT(V) ! also try this

[Mike King]

Have you tried setting 'VAL$ of the *VARIANT object then changing its type?

Code Select Expand

->def object v,"*variant"
->v'val$="false"
->?v'val$
false
->print v'type$
S
->v'type$="B"
->print v'val
 0
->v'val$="true"
->print v'type$
S
->v'type$="B"
->print v'val$
-1As per the docs, setting the type will cause the *VARIANT to properly convert the value.

[HendersonS]

Mike, I tried doing it as you instructed, but I'm still getting the same error.

Code Select Expand

DEF OBJECT v,"*VARIANT"
v'val$="false"
v'type$="B"
PRINT v'val$
0
report'export(*v)
report'export(v) !also try this
Error #88: Invalid/unknown property name
Exception occurred (err/ret=2/0)



[James Zukowski]

Have you tried starting with numeric values to convert to Boolean? Would this work?

Code Select Expand

DEF OBJECT v,"*VARIANT"
v'val=1
v'type$="B"
PRINT v'val
-1
v'val=0
v'type$="B"
PRINT v'val
0

[Mike King]

I suspect your call to the export method is incorrect.

I did a search on the web and on this page found an example that appears to show the Export method wants the exportOptions to be passed, not a boolean.

    Dim wordExportOptions As New ExportOptions()
    wordExportOptions.ExportDestinationType = ExportDestinationType.DiskFile
    wordExportOptions.ExportDestinationOptions = dfDestinationOptions
    wordExportOptions.ExportFormatType = ExportFormatType.WordForWindows
    wordExportOptions.ExportFormatOptions = Nothing
    
    rd.Export(wordExportOptions)

[HendersonS]

James, I tried it with numerical values, but it still doesn't work.

Mike, I tried passing the object from exportOptions and it's still not working. I think your example uses a different version of Crystal Reports; we're using 8.5. As mentioned before, we used the same logic in PowerShell and it works fine, so we think it should work in pxplus.

PowerShell code Works:

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$app = New-Object -ComObject CrystalRuntime.Application
$report = $app.OpenReport("C:\temp\customers.rpt")
$report.EnableParameterPrompting = $false
$report.DisplayProgressDialog = $false
$report.DiscardSavedData() | Out-Null
$exportOpts = $report.ExportOptions
$exportOpts.DestinationType = 1
$exportOpts.FormatType = 31
$exportOpts.DiskFileName = "C:\temp\customers.pdf"
$exportOpts.PDFExportAllPages = $true
$report.Export($false)
Pxplus code Fails:

Code Select Expand

DEF OBJECT CR_APP,"CrystalRuntime.Application"
 LET REPORT=CR_APP'OPENREPORT("C:\temp\customers.rpt")
 LET REPORT'ENABLEPARAMETERPROMPTING=0
 LET REPORT'DISPLAYPROGRESSDIALOG=0
 LET DS=REPORT'DISCARDSAVEDDATA()
 LET EXPORTOPTS=REPORT'EXPORTOPTIONS ! Opts Object EXPORTOPTS
 LET EXPORTOPTS'DESTINATIONTYPE=1
 LET EXPORTOPTS'FORMATTYPE=31 ! pdf
 LET EXPORTOPTS'PDFEXPORTALLPAGES=-1
 LET EXPORTOPTS'DISKFILENAME$="C:\temp\customers.pdf"
 REPORT'EXPORT(0)