I found the following under case 30792032 :

There are some DRILLMENUITEM limitations which are being reached:

1. The maximum length of a FOCEXEC=fex argument is 2400 characters.

2. You can create multiple parameters. The entire string of parameters must
be enclosed in parenthesis, separated from each other by a blank space, and
cannot exceed 2400 characters.

3. The maximum DRILLMENUITEM name is 80 characters.

4. The maximum number of DRILLMENUITEM is 12.

My issue is that I have a report with 7 drillmenu items and 17 parameters that need to be passed. Does anyone know of any techniques or ways around these limitations? I can comment out the last 2 drillmenu items and it works fine which leads me to believe I am over the character limit.

Eric

One way to reduce the number of characters in a hyperlink is to reduce the parameter name to two characters. Another way is to pass codes not values, e.g. CA instead of Canada.

.eric,
we'll be talking about this very issue at Summit, when Tony and Francis and I give a talk about Coding Standards. The max length is a function of your browser, so the statement about "2400 char" is indeed troubling.
IE has a maximum length of about 2k characters for a url (the shortest of all the browsers, oddly enough); and a drilldown is a url.. it contains the path to your server, the webfocus engine, the fexname and all the parms.
so you start by making the parm names very very very short...
From what you say, i would guess that you have indeed exceeded the 2k limit. I've hit that many a time myself, which is why i know your pain.
You can also do some branching within your style sheet tomake sure that you expose ONLY the drillmenu items that are needed.
For example:
TYPE=DATA,COLUMN=MODEL,
-IF &COUNTRY NE 'ALL' GOTO model.car ;
focexec=&DD0(...),
-model.car
-IF &CAR NE 'ALL' GOTO model.seats;
focexec=&DD0(...),
-model.seats
-IF &SEATS NE 0 GOTO model.end;
focexec=&DD0(...),
-model.end
$
-*-----
Other things you can do, make sure none of your parms is 'ON' or 'OFF', but rather 1 and 0;
Takes less room to pass thru.
Make sure you pass code values, not names, takes too much room.
and, as far as i know, there is that 12 element limit to the # of drillmenu items.

Yeah the majority of my parms are codes (mostly between 2 and 5 characters), but we have also some descriptions (of the codes, so CA and Canada would both be sent as 2 parms) which are loaded in as parms because they are taken off the dropdowns off the launch pages so those are usually the killers.

I tried using something like in the arguments section:
-SET &PARM1 = IF &PARM1 EQ '$*' THEN '' ELSE ''' | &PARM1 | "'''';

Which worked in some cases, but again I have to account for the possiblity in which all parms have a value other than $*.

I also do have to have all 7 drillmenuitems listed every time because they are basic product categories. Which was the other thing I was trying to figure out because of the 17 parms, 16 are always the same where the lone one is the different product categories the user can drill too.

ah.
you've hit on why is don't use $*
some of my parms are A1 so $* wouldn't work for them anyway
and FOC_NONE is too long;

As for CA, i would only pass the CA and then determine the longname of CA via a decode file in the child fex.
-SET &CNAME=IF &CA IS '$*' THEN ' ' ELSE DECODE &CA (DECODECA);
where DECODECA is filedeffed in the child fex
and is made in batch at night, say,
and is
CA 'CANADA'
BF 'BURKINA FASO'
...

and it sounds like some internal branching would work just fine for your category conditions

The only problem is that there's not an easy way to build a decode file because there are 6 different codes that need descriptions and each code has anywhere from 30-1000 values. That's why I originally set it up to be passed as a parm and to be grabbed from the dropdown text of the launch page...but as the report changed and more parms were added it stopped working.

I can query the decoded value of the code through seperate fexes but I was trying to avoid that. Ughh...this isn't looking good.

Wow Ms. Susannah !!
You, Tony and Francis making a presentation together ? That would create a buzz equal to the famous "FocWizards" sessions.

Unfortunately I will be missing this year's Summit. Hope you all have some fun out there.

Sandeep Mamidenna

And getting back to your Q .eric :
I would also suggest that you take a very close look at all the parms, tighten up your code to exlucde unnecessary ones and look at every possible one that can be derived by using Decodes in the child fex.

If that does not work, you could look at -WRITEing the parms to a file, and -READing the file in the child fex. Cumbersome, but will work if there is no way out.

Sandeep Mamidenna

Blue, what a shame you won't be there. We were looking forward to meeting ' a dash of fun'

Hope ya'll have a large room.