Best Multilingual Reporting Tool?

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Best Multilingual Reporting Tool?

Undebtedly

SSCrazy

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October 8, 2002 at 10:08 am

#159174

We have an app built with C++ on the front and MSDE on the back. We need to have the ablility to report data from any language. (Really.) Any thoughts how to best do this?
Steve

Steve Miller

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Chris Hedgate One Orange Chip Points: 25041 More actions · Answer 1

Not sure I understand the question fully, but I guess you're asking how to store data in any language. If so, use national character data instead av normal character data, i.e nchar instead of char, nvarchar instead of varchar and ntext instead of text. Since it is stored in unicode, all languages are able to store in this datatype, but the downside is that it uses up double the size.

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Chris Hedgate @ Apptus Technologies (http://www.apptus.se)

http://www.sql.nu

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Chris Hedgate http://www.hedgate.net/
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Antares686 SSC Guru Points: 125444 More actions · Answer 2

Not sure of anything able to do this in a single report. I am pretty sure that Crystal supports various languages but you will have to build a customized report for each language to be supported. Other than the look of the report itself you then just need to worry about the data storage and Chris hit it.

"Don't roll your eyes at me. I will tape them in place." (Teacher on Boston Public)

Undebtedly SSCrazy Points: 2938 More actions · Answer 3

We have the data storage question answered by using nvarchar, nchar, etc. I have a whole lot of work ahead of me in figuring out how to do collations that MS doesn't support.

Now, I did Oracle prior to this, and Access prior to that, and FoxPro prior to that. Each of these have their own reporting tool. I feel like I'm left out in the cold coming to SQL Server. What do I use to write reports?

Someone here said to write SQL commands to create XML. Then we can use a browser. I was hoping someone would suggest that as a viable solution, because it sounds relatively simple.

Steve

Steve Miller

Chris Hedgate One Orange Chip Points: 25041 More actions · Answer 4

As antares said, you can use Crystal Reports for creating reports, among other tools.

Using XML is of course a good alternative. Just add FOR XML AUTO to your selects, or check Books Online for more info on what you can do with it.

--

Chris Hedgate @ Apptus Technologies (http://www.apptus.se)

http://www.sql.nu

--
Chris Hedgate http://www.hedgate.net/
Contributor to the Best of SQL Server Central volumes
Articles: http://www.sqlservercentral.com/columnists/chedgate/

swjohnson Hall of Fame Points: 3254 More actions · Answer 5

We do this everyday in about 30 to 35 languages including Arabic and Hebrew. We gather surveys from around the world. The raw data is stored on our SQL 2K server (make sure to use nText, nChar, and nVarChar fields). When we do the reporting we use MS Access XP. MS Access stores all of its text fields internally as Unicode so you can DTS your data to Access and not have any problems. From there you can design your report and have your C++ app open and print the report. (NOTE: We print to Postscript and have Adode Acrobat distill the file to a PDF format--that way the report can be viewed by anyone.)

NOTE 2: The only problem we have encountered with this method is the sorting of textual data according the the appropriate alphabet sort of the language you are reporting in. Access XP does not have all the collations that SQL Server does so you need to this into account before you DTS your data over.

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Undebtedly SSCrazy Points: 2938 More actions · Answer 6

>> The only problem we have encountered with this method is the sorting of textual data according the the appropriate alphabet sort of the language you are reporting in

Confounding the problem is the fact that we will encounter languages and scripts that have not been computerized. We have a department here devoted to creating these alphabets and scripts, but someone has to think about sorting them. That be me.

I should also mention to everyone that we are using MSDE because of its licensing structure. Any solution that isn't open sourced, or some sort of free licensing for a nonprofit, probably won't be considered.

Steve

Steve Miller

SueStill SSC Eights! Points: 946 More actions · Answer 7

Use Crystal. The only problem is that the product lifecycle for versions is slim and upgrades are not cheap. Furthermore, versions don't "play nicely" with each other. Using Crystal (especially the newer Enterprise Ed v9 - which costs about $2500) is the best overall approach. You should still consider writing sp's (if parameters are needed - and I advise adding them even if they aren't needed because they always come up after the fact) and/or views to use as a data source for performance purposes. Crystal can connect to multiple data platforms and can be called from using any language. The 8.5 Developer edition has a new RDC component that automates creating and editing reports 'on the fly' in the application, which is something we love because it reduces ad-hoc requests. Also, using Crystal allows you the ability to update the reports, and even the report menu, without having to modify your app code. If you're looking for more web functionality, Enterprise edition is probably for you. If you mostly create reports that are called by an application that's already connecting to the datasource, the developer edition may suffice. Just be sure you consider the connection strings for the reports separately from the app and stick to the oledb provider. Finally, Crystal has one of the best vendor websites I've ever seen.