Not Used Filed

[iansmithwolves]

I am runnig a report which show the number of times an agent had used a certain field in a database. If that item does not appear I get a blank report. What I want is a field which says "Item not used" on the blank report. Any help please would be appreciated.

 

[Madawc]

Which Crystal? It makes a big difference to what's possible.

What I suspect you have is a null value. Having come to Crystal from mainframe languages, I got a 'cultural shock' when encountering null. It means 'no data': Mainframe languages mostly treat this as the same as zero.

It is actually a finer shade of meaning, the difference between 'Yes, we have no bananas' and 'I don't know how many bananas we have, it could be some, it could be zero'. In Crystal, the entry is 0 or null and can be tested for.

Note that Cyrstal assumes that anything with a null means that the field should not display. Always begin with something like

if isnull({your.field}) then "Item not used"
else {your.field}

If you are using table-to-table links, you can get a similar problem. Use 'left outer' for cases where an account may have transactions but also may have none. If you use a normal join, accounts without transactions get left out.

Madawc Williams (East Anglia)

 

[iansmithwolves]

Thanks Madawc, thats worked a treat.

Regards

Ian Smith
Wolverhampton