MS SQL Server - VS2005 and Reports for SQL2000

Author

VS2005 and Reports for SQL2000

Jean Paul Mertens

2006-10-24, 6:33 pm

Hello,

Is there a way to migrate my Reportserver project for SQL 2000 Report
services developed with VS2003 so that I can use and modify them in VS 2005
or have I realy to install VS 2003 on my new machine?

Greets

Jean Paul

lucm@iqato.com

2006-10-24, 6:33 pm

Jean Paul Mertens wrote:
> Is there a way to migrate my Reportserver project for SQL 2000 Report
> services developed with VS2003 so that I can use and modify them in VS 2005
> or have I realy to install VS 2003 on my new machine?

Reports are not compatible between 2000/2003 and 2005. To do the
migration you need to have both versions of Visual Studio on the same
machine (or VS2003 and BI Studio 2005).

In case you don't find this annoying enough, you'll be thrilled to know
that tables and other layout items can't be copy-pasted from one
version of the designer to the other... At least you will be able to
copy-paste the SQL queries...

Also, here is a very valuable advice from someone who did a lot of
"manual migrations": no matter if you are in the data or layout tab,
just stay away from CTRL-Z, as it will never have the effect you would
expect.

What you need now is two monitors... and a lot of patience.

Cheers,
lucm

C# Second finger high on the A

2006-10-24, 6:33 pm

Hello Lucm,

My litlle finger had already a feeling of the senario, I think I gona leave
the report generators and relay on my own developement.
Happyly I never use query's in reports nor in source, I use only stored
procedures to query databases so the whole logic of my data collection is
not lost just the graphic layout. I'm already developing my own report
generator based on XML and I have the impresion that the .rdl files in the
rep.gen. of SQL 2000 who are also xml files should be convertable to my
tool. I will just mis the output to excel and pdf etc. but with a little
effort that to has to be overtakeble :-)

Pitty for the sad news but tnx anyway.

Jean Paul
ON7AMI

<lucm@iqato.com> schreef in bericht
news:1159551229.894562.136090@i42g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> Jean Paul Mertens wrote:
>
> Reports are not compatible between 2000/2003 and 2005. To do the
> migration you need to have both versions of Visual Studio on the same
> machine (or VS2003 and BI Studio 2005).
>
> In case you don't find this annoying enough, you'll be thrilled to know
> that tables and other layout items can't be copy-pasted from one
> version of the designer to the other... At least you will be able to
> copy-paste the SQL queries...
>
> Also, here is a very valuable advice from someone who did a lot of
> "manual migrations": no matter if you are in the data or layout tab,
> just stay away from CTRL-Z, as it will never have the effect you would
> expect.
>
> What you need now is two monitors... and a lot of patience.
>
> Cheers,
> lucm
>

lucm@iqato.com

2006-10-24, 6:33 pm

C# Second finger high on the A wrote:
> Hello Lucm,
>
> My litlle finger had already a feeling of the senario, I think I gona leave
> the report generators and relay on my own developement.
> Happyly I never use query's in reports nor in source, I use only stored
> procedures to query databases so the whole logic of my data collection is
> not lost just the graphic layout. I'm already developing my own report
> generator based on XML and I have the impresion that the .rdl files in the
> rep.gen. of SQL 2000 who are also xml files should be convertable to my
> tool. I will just mis the output to excel and pdf etc. but with a little
> effort that to has to be overtakeble :-)
>
> Pitty for the sad news but tnx anyway.
>

Well, I can't blame you for going this way. Since you plan to do a lot
of work, maybe I could warn you about another potential reporting
issue: DOM.

As you know it, Reporting Services is extensively using XML, and
according to the documentation I found it is doing all the
transformation in memory. So my guess is that it is using a DOM engine
that does XSLT manipulation.

DOM is a technology that works on an complete XML tree, which means
that the entire data must be loaded in memory. Just for fun, build a
report that output a few thousands records, say 50k, and watch
Reporting Services as it is going down in flame. It is not a bug in the
software, it is just a limitation of DOM.

If you do only small reports, DOM is fine. However, if you need to do
huge printouts, like financial or warehouse stuff, it will quickly run
out of steam.

Thank god there is another solution: SAX. Unlike DOM, SAX engines don't
need to load a whole XML tree. It is event-based, so it can swim across
endless amounts of XML. There are a few SAX-enabled XSLT engine out
there, like Xalan or Saxon.

If you have some knowledge of java, you could have a look at Jasper
Reports, which is a SAX-friendly, free report generator. Jasper is not
as easy to master as Reporting Services, but it is incredibly reliable
and powerful, so if you are ready to put in some work it might be work
looking at.

As for the PDF thing, have a look at apache Fop.

Regards,
lucm

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