Progress
Report Builder
Deployment Guide


Report Status File

The first location where Report Engine outputs status information is a text file called the report status file. The file’s name and location depend upon which interface you use.

If you use the PRINTRB interface, Report Engine automatically writes report status information to the report status file, called RBRUN.OUT in the current directory.

If you use the PRNTRB2 interface, you must set the RB-STATUS-FILE parameter. The report status file is created and has the same format as the RBRUN.OUT file. If you do not indicate the filename, this file is not generated. The file is written to either the directory specified in the RB-STATUS-FILE or the current directory if none is specified. See "Report Engine PRINTRB and PRNTRB2 Interfaces," for a complete description of the Report Status File parameter.

However, if you use the table interface, you can choose whether to have Report Engine create a report status file, using the Report Status File (-rbstatfile) parameter. This parameter specifies the file name and directory of the report status file. See "Report Engine Table Interface," for a complete description of the Report Status File parameter.

After running Report Engine, you can check the status file for information about Report Engine processing. If Report Engine encountered an error, the file contains an error message that explains why a report was terminated, as well as an error code that lets you determine the type of error. The status file also contains the number of pages printed, so a report can be restarted where it left off.

If you set the RB-DISPLAY-ERRORS parameter to true, Report Engine also displays error messages on the screen as it executes. For a complete description of the RB-DISPLAY-ERRORS parameter, see "Report Engine Parameters,"

To avoid confusing old and new status files, delete any existing status files before starting Report Engine.

The report status file is in Windows initialization (.INI) style format and has the header [report-name]. If Report Engine is running multiple reports, the report status file contains information about all the reports that were run (table interface only). Each report’s output appears in the same format as a separate .INI file section. Figure 2–1 shows a report status file for multiple reports.

[Customer Report]
RO-ERROR-CODE=N
RO-ERROR-MESSAGE=
RO-PAGES=1


[Order Report]
RO-ERROR-CODE=J
RO-ERROR-MESSAGE=Invalid report library
Ro-PAGES=0 

Figure 2–1: Report Status File for Multiple Reports

There are three entries in Report Engine status file:

Entries appear one per line in the following format:

entry = value 

The following sections describe each of the three entries.

RO-ERROR-CODE

Table 2–1 describes the possible error code entries.

Table 2–1: Error Code Entries 
Entry
Meaning
N
Report Engine completed without error. The RO-ERROR-MESSAGE value is blank.
C
The user selected Cancel to cancel a report. The RO-ERROR-MESSAGE message is “Report cancelled.”
J
There is an error in the Report Engine command or in the Report Engine record. See the message in the RO-ERROR-MESSAGE entry.
R
An error occurred while attempting to process the report. See the message in the RO-ERROR-MESSAGE entry.

RO-ERROR-MESSAGE

The error message value depends upon the type of error. The following table lists what type of message appears for different errors:

If the error message is . . .

Then . . .
Blank
Report Engine completed without error.
Report cancelled
The user selected Cancel to cancel a report.
Other
An error occurred while trying to process the report. This might be caused by invalid information in the report definition, such as an incorrect database name, an error in the Report Engine parameters (for example, a misspelled field name in a filter expression), or an external factor (for example, a server or printer is unavailable).

RO-PAGES

This entry contains the number of the last page completed in the report. You can use this number to restart a terminated report at the page where the error occurred.

For example, if you are printing pages 10 through 20 of a report and the printer jams on page 15, this entry contains 14 (the number of the last page that printed successfully). If RO-PAGES contains 14, you can restart the report at page 15 by entering 15 in the RB-BEGIN-PAGE parameter and 20 in the RB-END-PAGE parameter.


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