Select Expert help on search
Printed From: Crystal Reports Book
Category: Crystal Reports 9 through 2020
Forum Name: Report Design
Forum Discription: The best way to design a report and problems you have encountered
URL: http://www.crystalreportsbook.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=2006
Printed Date: 27 Apr 2024 at 8:43pm
Topic: Select Expert help on search
Posted By: Yume
Subject: Select Expert help on search
Date Posted: 09 Jan 2008 at 3:08am
|
Hello,
I'm not sure if this is possible but is there a way to create a parameter that would enable users to enter characters that is contain in a string field.
I have a string field that users need to search by but may not know all the characters. The records can be any length and no set pattern, hence they want to search by entering some of the characters to bring out a list of records.
Is there a way to create this type of search in the parameter like in the Excel with 'Contains in' function?
|
Replies:
Posted By: Lugh
Date Posted: 09 Jan 2008 at 4:34am
|
Absolutely. There are actually a few functions that will do this, with varying degrees of precision and with varying options. Check out String Functions in the help file (or, even better, in Brian's book) for a list of the options. One of the handy things about Crystal is that it treats a string as an array of characters. So, in addition to the built-in string functions, you can also use any array functions on it. This can allow you to perform some really wacky operations, should you really need it (like parsing out address information from untrained user input). |
Posted By: Yume
Date Posted: 11 Jan 2008 at 3:44am
|
I took a look at the help file and try the filter option but I can't get it to work. The field I'm trying to obtain information from is maximum 25 characters and the records can be from 1 to 25 characters in that field.
So far I created a parameter and attached it to that field in Select Expert using the function 'to like'.
I'm waiting for my book to be available in Amazon at the moment as they don't have stock
 My boss wants allow the user to enter a few digits like '1234 etc' and then it brings up records that contains those characters such as 1df24vfg3 for example.
|
Posted By: Lugh
Date Posted: 11 Jan 2008 at 4:55am
|
Oh ho! Now that's a tricky little problem. OK, first of all, if you enter "1234," do you want 2uy4gty3u1 returned? I.e., does order matter? What about 1112233344? If order does matter, and duplicates don't, then you can still use "LIKE." You just need to put an asterisk between each character, e.g. LIKE "*1*2*3*4*". If order doesn't matter, this gets trickier. Let me know if that's the case. Normally, I would check that by simply looping through the string. But, I'm not sure you can put a loop structure in your selection criteria. Of course, if the entry is always the same length, or at least has a guaranteed maximum length, then you can do it brute force style, without a loop. Well, in this case, I guess 25 is certainly the maximum, but that's going to be a nasty long brute force query. If duplicates do matter, then it gets really tricky. Especially if you allow duplicates in the search string, and the result has to have the same number of duplicates. E.g., if you enter 1122, it will return 1*1*2*2, but not 1*1*1*2*2 or 1*2*2. The easiest way I could see to do that would be with nested loops. But, again, I'm not sure that's allowed. |
Posted By: Yume
Date Posted: 11 Jan 2008 at 6:08am
|
Spoke about it to my colleagues and reckons the first suggestion will be satisfactory. Thank you for the big help, never knew how much you can do on CR. Only had two lessons on this. |