The report is developed in multistep
Step1: Detail data is retreived and hold in file temp A with format ALPHA
Step2: Subtotals are appended to temp A at various level
Step3: Grand total is appended to temp B at higher level

The code was running and generating the data till some time.

Now there is a strange issue. Detail section is not appearing for few levels. When we analysed the hold file data after taking detail data, found that few column values are stored as blank in the hold file. But detail data is printed (TABLE FILE TEST) directly from the required table which is used to hold in TEMP A is showing data for all columns, there are no null values.

We tried changing the fromat ALPHA to BINARY, Report o/p is looking fine. Detail section is appearing for all levels.

Please let us know ALPHA vs BINARY. Why change in format to BINARY is making our code to work?

Please guide us

There is no difference between Alpha and Binary format with regard what is stored
the difference is how it is stored.

Changing from Alpha to binary should not affect the output in any way.

Normally binary is the format that should be used for hold files the exceptions to this are
when you want the file to be used by a –READ or as input into another process that requires Alpha data.

Typically the effect you are seeing is caused when the multiple holds are not the same
which means that the master and data file are invalid.

For example

SET HOLDLIST = PRINTONLY
FILEDEF SOURCE DISK SOURCE:FTM (APPEND
-RUN
TABLE FILE CAR
PRINT MODEL/A25
BY COUNTRY
WHERE COUNTRY EQ 'ENGLAND'
ON TABLE HOLD AS SOURCE
END
-RUN
TABLE FILE CAR
PRINT MODEL/A25
BY COUNTRY
WHERE COUNTRY EQ 'W GERMANY'
ON TABLE HOLD AS SOURCE
END
-RUN

Will give you a file that works perfectly

However add another step

-RUN
TABLE FILE CAR
PRINT MODEL
BY COUNTRY
WHERE COUNTRY EQ 'ITALY'
ON TABLE HOLD AS SOURCE
END
-RUN

Will give you an invalid data file and master because the format of MODEL is A24

I suspect that this is the issue and not the HOLD FORMAT

Hi JG,

Data types are not issue in our code as while appending we had taken care of the data type. If data type is an issue, it should fail for all detail data. But it is failing only for few records, not for all.

Will there be any other possible reason?

Regards,
Thangam

Hi Thangam,

I ran some search using the keywords ALPHA and BINARY and came across the following topics which may be of interest:

FORMAT ALPHA's FOCLIST-limit is different than FORMAT BINARY
http://techsupport.informationbuilders.com/sps/11052010.html

HOLD several ALPHA flds & the BINARY file larger than ALPHA
http://techsupport.informationbuilders.com/sps/13542107.html

Summary: SET HOLDFORMAT=ALPHA give incorrect results Date Fields
http://techsupport.informationbuilders.com/known_problems/21232151.html

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Kerry