Changing Data Type of a Custom DD used by several Custom Objects

[Zoltan_Gyimesi]

Hi List/Forum,

I have not figured out any solution up to now, making wild-card filtering possible in QBE line on grid columns with data type 20 = Variable String
so I plan to make an attempt to change the data type of this DD Item in the Data Dictionary to 2 = String, keeping the length 255 and the other attributes of it.

OK, I know - this is very risky, but I haven't any other idea.

This DD item is used already in several custom objects, like:

- Tables
- Business Views
- Forms
- Form Interconnect Data Structures
- Event Rules
- Business Functions

I plan to do the following after the Data Type has been changed:

- re-generate all tables (losing the already existing data is not too big problem currently)
- re-generate all Business Views
- re-open and save all forms / appls
- re-check Event Rule lines

...where this DD item is referenced.

Did any body do this type of changes already?
If yes, then with what kind of success?

All answer, hint or advise will be highly appreciated.

Regards,

Zoltán

 

[vbojan]

Hello Zoltan,

This is for read only form, correct? If so, how about SQL view with all fields of original table and additional char(255) field? Make a copy of original table, add char(255) field, create business view and change business view on form.

Should be easy and it’s not risky,

Regards,

Bojan.

 

[Zoltan_Gyimesi]

Hello Bojan,

Thanks for your hint!

Unfortunatelly this DD item is used on more forms, and not all of them is read only.

Further this DD is used also in Table I/O Event Rule statements too (Fetch, Insert, Update).

Regards,

Zoltán

 

[jbates]

Hi Zoltán

I did this this summer. It was a significant headache, as you can't just resave everything. You need to be sure touch every occurance of the variables and regenerate all your data structure headers (form interconnects, data structures and table headers). I don't quite remember, but you probably have to recreate your table I/O's. Also, you may have to create new event/form variables to replace the old variable. I ended up digging around in the C code of some of my NER's, since they did not get fully cleaned up on the rebuilds (the compiler thought that things were ok for some reason. the code crashed when it ran, as it had variable types all messed up in C code), which is why I needed to create new event variables.

We found out that variable length strings and integers are not useful in JDE. JDE does not support these two data types.

Let me know if you have any more questions. It is not pleasant, but it can be done.

Jim
XE MS SQL TSE