Hello,

I am working on a compound PDF report which has a very specific layout and styling defined in the fex. Most of the content for the report is default texts and all those texts have been defined in the fex.

DEFINE FILE SHORT
......
.....
TEXT001/A50 WITH CONTINENT = 'Northern Leasing (NLS)';
TEXT002/A50 WITH CONTINENT = 'Northern Leasing Systems, Inc.';
TEXT003/A50 WITH CONTINENT = '419 East Main Street';
TEXT004/A50 WITH CONTINENT = 'Suite 102';
TEXT005/A50 WITH CONTINENT = 'Middletown, NY 10940';
....
....
END

TABLE FILE SHORT
PRINT
TEXT001 IN 2 AS ''
TEXT002 IN 17 AS '' OVER
TEXT003 IN 17 AS '' OVER
TEXT004 IN 17 AS '' OVER
.......
.......
WHERE RECORDLIMIT EQ 1
ON TABLE SET PAGE NOPAGE
ON TABLE PCHOLD FORMAT PDF OPEN
ON TABLE SET STYLESHEET *
TYPE=REPORT, FONT=VERBANA, SIZE=10, STYLE=BOLD, COLUMN=TEXT001, JUSTIFY=CENTER, WRAP=1.20,$
TYPE=REPORT, FONT=VERBANA, SIZE=9, STYLE=BOLD, COLUMN=TEXT002, WRAP=6,$
..........
........
TYPE=REPORT, NAME='BOXALL', OBJECT=BOX, POSITION=(0.2 0.2),
DIMENSION=(8.10 10.5),
BORDER-COLOR=BLACK, BORDER=MEDIUM,$
TYPE=REPORT, NAME='BOX001', OBJECT=BOX, POSITION=(0.200 0.700),
DIMENSION=(8.10 0),
BORDER-COLOR=BLACK, BORDER=MEDIUM,
BACKCOLOR=WHITE,$
TYPE=REPORT, NAME='BOX002', OBJECT=BOX, POSITION=(0.200 0.700),
DIMENSION=(1.45 1.55),
BORDER-COLOR=BLACK, BORDER=MEDIUM,
BACKCOLOR=WHITE,$
TYPE=REPORT, NAME='BOX003', OBJECT=BOX, POSITION=(0.200 2.250),
DIMENSION=(8.10 0),
BORDER-COLOR=BLACK, BORDER=MEDIUM,
BACKCOLOR=WHITE,$
..........
............
ENDSTYLE
END


I am pasting part of this code so as to give everyone an idea of what I am trying to do... I have about 100 texts defined and being printed on my report... Out of all these texts, I have few that are conditional based on what the user selects on the HTML launch page for this report... If the user selects a particular option 'CTP' (for example) then I have to print above lines, if not then some other lines of text..

How do I go about conditionally printing certain lines so as to not disturb my formatting or spacing or text placements?

I tried numbering these texts as ROW1, ROW2, etc by defining an integer variable called ROW and then tried this:

TABLE FILE SHORT
PRINT .......
........
..........
FOR ROW NOPRINT 1 OVER 2 OVER 3
WHERE &PARAM EQ 'CTP'
........
.......
END

But this gave me an error FOC138 which I don't understand why..

Any thoughts on how I can conditionally make certain rows of text visible/printable based on user input?

Thanks in advance!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Nova27,

Without knowing the full complexities of your needs it is a bit difficult to give you the "Best" solution, but some options you might want to consider is using GOTO syntax.

.....
PRINT
-IF &OPTION1 EQ 'CTP' THEN GOTO :CTP
-IF &OPTION1 EQ 'TPS' THEN GOTO :TPS
-:CTP
TEXT001
TEXT002
-GOTO :COMPLETE
-:TPS
TEXT003
TEXT004
-GOTO :COMPLETE
-:COMPLETE
ON TABLE HOLD AS...  

You could also define variables with comments like

-SET &SHOWFIELD= IF &OPTION1 IN ('CPT','TPS') THEN '-*' ELSE '';

TABLE FILE...
PRINT
&SHOWFIELD.EVAL TEXT001
&SHOWFIELD.EVAL TEXT002
&SHOWFIELD.EVAL TEXT003
ON TABLE HOLD ....  

You could also store you text in a table as well and read from the table which would allow you to pass your options as regular parameters. Considering that you aren't reading your values from a table already, I'm going to assume that it was already decided to not do this in the first place.

Personally I would probably go the table route... but thats me.

Use Dialogue Manager GOTO commands, something like:

TABLE FILE ...
PRINT

-GOTO &PARAM

-CTP
TEXT001 IN 2 AS ''
TEXT002 IN 17 AS '' OVER
TEXT003 IN 17 AS '' OVER
TEXT004 IN 17 AS '' OVER
...
-GOTO ROWS_END

-ABC
TEXT011 IN 2 AS ''
TEXT012 IN 17 AS '' OVER
...
-GOTO ROWS_END

-DEF
TEXT021 IN 2 AS ''
TEXT022 IN 17 AS ''
-GOTO ROWS_END

-ROWS_END
...

END

Note this GOTO will only work if there are no blanks or some other special characters in the possible values of &PARAM.

If there are, you will have to do it a little differently:

TABLE FILE ...
PRINT

-      IF &PARAM EQ 'CTP' THEN GOTO CTP
- ELSE IF &PARAM EQ 'A B C' THEN GOTO ABC
- ELSE IF &PARAM EQ 'D%F' THEN GOTO DF
- ELSE GOTO THE_REST;

-CTP
TEXT001 IN 2 AS ''
TEXT002 IN 17 AS '' OVER
TEXT003 IN 17 AS '' OVER
TEXT004 IN 17 AS '' OVER
...
-GOTO ROWS_END

-ABC
TEXT011 IN 2 AS ''
TEXT012 IN 17 AS '' OVER
...
-GOTO ROWS_END

-DF
TEXT021 IN 2 AS ''
TEXT022 IN 17 AS ''
-GOTO ROWS_END

-THE_REST
TEXT091 IN 2 AS ''
TEXT092 IN 17 AS ''
-GOTO ROWS_END

-ROWS_END
...

END

Thank you guys..