Unicode transition¶

What do I have to do to get my existing reports ready for Unicode?

DataFlex Reports Developer Edition lets you install a maintenance utility which can be used to mass migrate report definitions from an older version to the current version.

DataFlex Reports Standard Edition users simply load the existing reports in the Studio, make a small change in, for example, the report document properties, and save the reports.

To use Unicode data from a database, all you need to verify is that the ODBC driver used to talk to the server delivers the data as Unicode data. All data sources are expected to return Unicode data with, of course, the exception of the DataFlex embedded database. Reports based on this database may return OEM or ANSI data.

Another issue is the use of 64-bit ODBC drivers, as you need to use a 64-bit capable ODBC driver when you want to use the 64-bit DataFlex Reports OCX. When you need to update your reports, you can either do this at the integration level or use another new feature of DataFlex Reports, which is JSON out and in. In version 8, you can save your report definition as a JSON file, perform a wildcard search and replace operation, and then import the JSON file again.

Integration is normally at runtime and in memory, but version 8 contains a SaveAs function to update the .DR file. This way, you can easily update many reports.