Debugging - What is N5?

Debugging - What is N5?

By Joyce Halford

Problem:

Debugging technique to determine what is actually happening in a report when what you want to happen isn't. This example uses a missing drilldown link as the problem but the technique can be applied to many reporting situations where the resulting report isn't displaying what is expected.

Solution:

In this report, retail cost,

which is the fifth column on the screen display,

should have a drill down

and there isn't a hyper link on the retail cost data or column title.

This is a section of the code and as you can see a drilldown is specified for column 5.

But, when I run the report...

One way to determine exactly what is happening is to add color

     to the columns before and after the one where I want the drilldown.

On column 4, I changed the font color to red,

the font for column five is blue and column six is green.

In this case the last column that we saw in the report display is five,

     but I’ve added styling to a column 6 anyway,

     and if it doesn’t exist it isn't a problem (the reference will just be ignored.)

When I run the report with the previous stylesheet information,

you can see that the RED in the column 4 reference is displaying

       and GREEN for column 6 is there

but the BLUE specified for column 5 isn’t on the report.

And, column five is where I expected the drill and the BLUE font,

       obviously, what I think is column 5,

       is not what WebFOCUS thinks is column 5...

If we look at the report code you will see that I'm redefining the retail cost field

so column five is actually a NOPRINT column.

If I change the style sheet to have a drilldown on column 6

This report displays.

This is a very simple example of this technique and

        when you use the GUI tool, this specific example isn't a problem.

             The GUI tool codes the stylesheet correctly.

But, this technique can be applied

   when you expect one thing in your report

    and are getting another.

I find this technique extremely helpful if I am using multiple by fields with subfoots and subheads,

    especially if I’m using WHEN conditions.

At times I have taken the color indicators to the next level and

       have used a background color instead of sometimes in addition to changing the font color.

If any questions, please contact Joyce at joyce.halford@usbank.com.