Certification Report Number 317

Title:	SAP Business Objects Crystal Reports 2008 version 12 with: Sybase IQ 15.0 SQL Anywhere 11.0
Certification Performed By:	Sybase Application Engineering Team
Certification Date:	May 2009

Contents

• Overview
• Tests Performed
• Setup and Configuration
• Feature Example
• Test Notes
• Issues and Incompatibilities
• Test Environment
• Other Sources of Information
• Vendor Contact Information

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Overview

This section describes each of the products tested and how they were used during testing. For more information about any of the products, please refer to the product literature. This report documents only the platforms and products tested for certification. Other possible combinations of these products and platforms are not certified by Sybase. For more information about Sybase IQ or SQL Anywhere, including known issues not encountered during this certification or those occurring on other platforms, see the Sybase Release Bulletin for the relevant product and platform.

• SAP Business Objects Crystal Reports 2008 version 12 (hereafter called "Crystal Reports") served as the reporting tool, querying the Sybase IQ and SQL Anywhere databases. The Crystal Reports version tested was a 32-bit application installed and run on a 64-bit Windows XP Professional machine.
• Sybase® IQ version 15.0 (hereafter called "IQ") served primarily as a data source, but also as a target for the Crystal Reports report export function. Two 64-bit IQ database server instances running on the same Sun SPARC Solaris 10 workstation were tested. One ran with the version 15.0 sample "iqdemo" database and the other ran with a database loaded with IQ supported data type test tables and data.
• 32-bit Sybase IQ 15.0 ODBC Driver for Windows version 11 (hereafter called the "IQ ODBC driver") enabled ODBC connectivity between Crystal Reports and the IQ servers. The driver was installed with the Sybase IQ 15.0 Network Database Client for Windows, which includes the driver in both 32-bit and 64-bit word sizes. Note that version 11 of the driver is the appropriate version to work with the 15.0 version of the IQ. The 32-bit version of the driver was used because the version of Crystal Reports tested was a 32-bit application and the word-size of the driver must match that of the client application, not the target server. For testing, two system data sources names (DSNs) were defined using the IQ ODBC driver: one for the sample iqdemo database and one for the data types test database.
• Sybase SQL Anywhere Network Server version 11.0 (hereafter called "SA") served primarily as the data source, but also as a target for the Crystal Reports report export function. Two 64-bit SA instances running on the same Windows XP machine were tested. One ran with the sample "demo" database and the other ran with a database loaded with supported data type test data. The data type database was configured with the UTF-8 character set. Note that this was not the same machine on which Crystal Reports was run.
• Sybase SQL Anywhere 11 ODBC Driver (hereafter called the "SA ODBC driver") enabled connectivity between Crystal Reports and the SA servers. The SA ODBC driver was also installed with the Sybase IQ 15.0 Network Database Client for Windows, which includes both the SA and IQ drivers in both 32-bit and 64-bit word sizes. For testing, two system data sources names (DSNs) were defined using the SA ODBC driver: one for the sample demo database and one for the data types test database.

*Click here for for Sybase trademark and registration information.

The following diagram illustrates the test environment. For detailed information about the environment, see the section Test Environment later in this report.

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Tests Performed

This section contains a detailed explanation of the tests performed.

• Installed the Sybase database servers. IQ was installed on a 64-bit Sun SPARC Solaris 10 workstation and SA was installed on a 64-bit Windows XP server. All default options were accepted during installation. Note that the language packs required for Simplified Chinese language support were installed on the Sybase server host machines. See the section Test Environment for details about the software installed on the test machines.
• The SA and IQ server instances were run with the sample demo databases. See Test Note 9 for information about the IQ 15 demo database. The two servers were also run with databases that were created to hold supported data type test tables and data. The IQ demo and both the IQ and SA data type test databases were configured with character set UTF-8.
• Installed Crystal Reports, a 32-bit application, accepting the default installation options, onto a Windows XP machine. See step 2 in the Setup and Configuration section for more details on the Crystal Reports setup.
• Installed the Sybase IQ 15.0 Database Client for Windows on the same machine with Crystal Reports. This software installed both 32-bit IQ and SA ODBC drivers used for connectivity between Crystal Reports and the remote Sybase databases.
• Installed Microsoft Windows Asian language packs to load the Simplified Chinese language onto the Crystal Reports machine.
• Used the 32-bit Microsoft ODBC Administrator installed with the Sybase IQ Database Client to configure two system ODBC data source names (DSNs) for each of the Sybase servers on the Crystal Reports machine. Two DSNs were created using the 32-bit IQ ODBC driver for connectivity to the remote IQ server on Solaris and two were configured using the 32-bit SA ODBC driver for connectivity on the remote Microsft Windows XP machine. For details, see step 3 in the Setup and Configuration section. For information about why it is best to use the ODBC Administrator installed with the Sybase IQ Database client, see Test Note 10.
• Tested the ODBC connection from Crystal Reports to the Sybase servers using the defined ODBC data sources (see step 4 in the Setup and Configuration section).
• Used the Crystal Reports Report wizard to perform the following tasks:
  • Connect to, retrieve from and display available tables in the Sybase databases. See the section Feature Example for instructions to perform these tasks.
  • Perform simple queries of data from a single table in each of the Sybase demo databases.
  • Detect and automatically define links relationships between tables (for example, by column name). See Test Note 2 for information about the Report Wizard Link panel.
  • Create reports with conditions, groupings and ordering.
  • Create reports based on a view defined in the Sybase database.
  • Create reports based on a stored procedure defined in the Sybase database that filters on a provided input parameter
• Used the Crystal Reports "Add Command" feature to test more complex SQL queries (see Test Note 1 for details), including the following.
  • Create reports based on a SQL statement with a HAVING clause.
  • Create reports based on CASE constructs.
• Evaluated Crystal Reports and the Sybase databases for the following, using ODBC connectivity protocol:
  1. Error handling - Database unavailable. See Test Note 12 for more information.
  2. Multiple-table joins handling. See Test Note 2 for more information.
  3. Processing pushed back to the database (SQL optimization), vs. performed in Crystal Reports.
  4. Character representation of binary data types. Crystal Reports supports, but does not specifically distinguish binary types. By default, Crystal Reports displays binary data as strings of hexadecimal characters, with no indication that these characters are binary. See Test Note 3 for a method to visually indicate binary data within reports.
     • Binary data types: bin, varbin
  5. Minimum, large and null-able value handling, for a sampling of numeric, date-time and binary data types supported by IQ and SA. See Test Note 11 for detailed of data type information.
  6. Raw data display of Large OBjects (LOBs). Crystal Reports is unable to display BLOB type data. See Test Note 11 for more information.
  7. Display of Multi-byte data in a report (referred to as a "Multi-Lingual" report by Crystal Reports).
     • Multi-byte data: Simplified Chinese text
  8. Retrieval of user-defined data types.
  9. Export of a Crystal Reports report using the ODBC protocol, back into Sybase IQ. See Test Note 5 for more information.

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Setup and Configuration

The following information relates to the setup and configuration of the test environment.

Install and configure the Sybase database servers

Install and configure the Sybase IQ 15.0 server

1. Install IQ 15.0 onto a 64-bit Sun SPARC Solaris 10 workstation, accepting all default installation options except the target installation directory.
2. Run the provided script to create the 15.0 version iqdemo sample database and then ran the sample database and server. See the Sybase IQ 15.0 New Features Guide for information about the demo database. Note that the test environment setup also included the creation and operation of a second IQ database configured with the UTF-8 character set and populated with supported data type data, including BLOB, CLOB and Simplified Chinese data.
3. Load the Solaris language packs to support the Simplified Chinese data used for multi-byte data testing.

Install and configure the Sybase SA server

1. Install SA 11.0 onto a 64-bit Windows XP machine with all default installation options.
2. Run the 64-bit SA 11 sample Network Database server option from the Start menu. This server runs with the sample demo database. Created another database from a test script to hold the data type test data and ran it as a second server instance. Note that the test environment setup also included the creation and operation of a second IQ database configured with the UTF-8 character set and populated with supported data type data, including BLOB, CLOB and Simplified Chinese data.
3. Loaded the Microsoft Asian language packs to support the Simplified Chinese data for multi-byte testing.

Install and configure the Sybase database client software

In the certification test environment, the Sybase IQ 15 Database Client for Windows was installed on the same Windows XP machine where Crystal Reports was installed. The IQ 15 database client includes the IQ 11 ODBC driver, which is required to enable ODBC connectivity between Crystal Reports and Sybase IQ. The IQ 15 Database Client also includes the SA 11 ODBC driver, which is required to enable ODBC connectivity between Crystal Reports and SA 11.

1. Install the Sybase IQ 15 Database Client for Windows on the same machine where you will install Crystal Reports. Note that this client software includes 32-bit and 64-bit versions of both the IQ 15 and SA 11 ODBC drivers.
2. Open the 32-bit ODBC Administrator available from the Start | Programs | Sybase | Sybase IQ 15.0 menu to configure ODBC data sources. Note that using the version of the ODBC Administrator available on this menu ensures you correctly load the 32-bit Sybase drivers. See Test Note 10 for more information about driver loading.
3. Configure data source names (DSNs) for IQ 15 and SA 11. For information about configuring DSNs, see theSybase Whitepaper: Basic Connectivity for Sybase IQ, ASE and Sybase RAP - The Trading Edition. Note that the IQ 15 and SA 11 drivers are very similar, so the instructions for configuring a DSN for IQ apply for SA 11. Also note that the demo databases for IQ 15 and SA 11 are configured with the UTF-8 character set. Thus, to connect to the demo databases, you may need to specify "utf8" in the Character Set field of the Advanced tab of the driver configuration dialog box.

Install and configure Crystal Reports

In the test environment, Crystal Reports was installed on the same 64-bit Windows XP machine with the Sybase IQ Network Database client. Note that even thought the operating system was 64-bit, both the Sybase IQ Network Database client and Crystal Reports were 32-bit applications.

1. Install Crystal Reports, accepting all the default installation options, plus the addition of language packs, including Crystal Reports 2008 Chinese Simplified Language Pack. After installation, Crystal Reports 2008 will be available as a Start menu programs option.
2. Launch the Crystal Reports application by choosing Start | <All> Programs | Crystal Reports 2008 | Crystal Reports 2008. Crystal Reports will open with the Start Page.

3. Configure Crystal Reports to connect to the IQ or SA server for which you want to create reports by performing the following steps:
   1. On the Start Page, double-click Report Wizard. The first time you open the Report Wizard, the Data panel opens with two folders available: My connections and Create New Connection. Later, after you create connections, those connections will also be listed here.



2. Expand the Create New Connection folder to view the list of data source types.



3. Scroll down to ODBC (RDO), which is the type to select for IQ or SA, and select it. The Data Source Selection dialog box opens showing a list of defined ODBC data sources. Note that data sources you created earlier with the 32-bit ODBC Administrator and IQ or SA drivers should be listed here.



4. Select the data source you configured for the IQ or SA server and database with which you want to connect and click Finish. Crystal Reports is now configured and ready to create reports with Sybase IQ or SA data. The next section Feature Example describes the process for creating a basic report.

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Feature Example

This section describes how to create a report using the Crystal Reports Report Wizard and Sybase data. The steps apply for SA and IQ, although SA is mostly shown in the examples.

1. If it is not already open, open the Crystal Reports application to display the Start Page.

2. Double-click Report Wizard to launch it. The Report Wizard Data panel opens.

3. Select the ODBC DSN connection you created for the Sybase database and click Next. Warning: Once a connection has been created, or an existing connection is selected, the '>>' button is activated. Do not click the '>>' button at this time. See Test Note 7 for an explanation. The first time you connect or if the connection times out, the Sybase ODBC driver configuration dialog box will open prompting you to log into the Sybase database. Note that Crystal Reports will not re-intiate a terminated connection. Note that errors can occur if a database has been shut down and restarted since the ODBC connection was made from Crystal Reports. See Test Note 12 for a recommended work-around. Once an ODBC connection has been made, subsequent invocations of the Report Wizard will show this connection.

4. When the Connect to dialog box opens, you provide valid login information for the target Sybase server and click OK. The Data panel now shows a list of the object owners under the DSN in the Available Data Sources window.

5. Expand one of the owners to see a list of their objects. For example, for the SA 11and IQ 15 demo database, expand the owner GROUPO and then the list of tables.

6. Select a table and click Next. For example, in the IQ 15 and SA 11 demo database, select the Products table. The field panel opens.

7. Select columns to appear in the report and click Finish. For example, in the IQ 15 and SA 11 demo Products table, select the ID, Description, Quantity and UnitPrice fields. Note that you can proceed through the wizard to perform more report creation tasks such as grouping, filtering and summarizing the report data or applying pre-defined report display format templates. But, this demonstration will stop using the wizard here and show to perform grouping and summarizing functions using the menu options. With the wizard selections made, the report opens in the main window.

8. View the report. Notice that it was created based on the selections made in the wizard. Now, use some of the Crystal Report menu options to modify the layout of the report.

9. Group the report results by one of the columns (fields) that you did not select to display in the report by locating Insert in the menu bar and selecting Group... from it. The Insert Group dialog box opens showing one of the fields you selected to display in the report.

10. Display the field (top) drop-down list. The top of the list show Report Fields, which are the fields currently selected for display in the report. The lower part of the list shows the source table name and all the columns available.

11. Select a column to group on that is not currently displayed in the report. For example, in the demo Products table, choose Name. Leave the default value of "in ascending order" and click OK. See how the report display changes to be listed (grouped) by the column you specified, such as product name.

12. If you have a field that you can total, for example the Product table contains a Quantity column, total it by navigating to the Insert menu again and choosing Summary. The Summary dialog box opens.

13. Select the field you want to total and leave the default value of "Sum" in the Calculate this summary field. Then under Summary location check the Add to all group levels option (the default is to include the a grand total in the report footer). Click OK. The sum of the quantity for each type of product as well as all products is now included in the report.

This completes the basic feature demonstration of Crystal Reports. Refer to the Crystal Reports for the many other reporting options available.

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Test Notes

This section contains information gained during testing, which may be helpful.

1. Test Note 1: Using the "Add Command" feature
2. Test Note 2: Using the Link panel of the Crystal Reports' Report wizard
3. Test Note 3: Indicating data is binary in Crystal Reports
4. Test Note 4: Using the "Field Formatter" to display a numeric field as an integer
5. Test Note 5: ODBC Export
6. Test Note 6: Wildcard Specification and Results Returned
7. Test Note 7: Do not attempt to Copy Entire DB Catalog to Crystal Reports
8. Test Note 8: ODBC DSNs defined in ODBC Administrator while Crystal Reports is running cannot be seen until Crystal Reports is restarted
9. Test Note 9: IQ 15.0 Sample iqdemo Database Schema
10. Test Note 10: To ensure the correct driver is loaded use the ODBC Administrator installed with the Sybase database client software
11. Test Note 11: Data Types tested and related notes

Test Note 1: Using the "Add Command" feature

The Report Wizard provides the "Add Command" feature on the Data panel for the purpose entering complex SQL queries. The Add Command feature is listed for each data source, and in the case of ODBC DSNs, at the same level in the tree as the object owners.

To use the Add Command feature, perform the following steps:

1. Select it from the list under the DSN you want and and click the ">" button.

2. After clicking on the ">" button, the Add Command to Report dialog box opens.
3. Enter any SQL you know to be valid in the target database.

4. After entering the SQL query and clicking on the OK button, the Selected Tables pane of the Data panel will show the DSN and "Command." At this point, you click Next to proceed through the wizard like you would had you selected any other table. Note: Even when using custom SQL queries, the user must select the data which is to be displayed in the report (either via the Report wizard, Database expert, or other report design tools). Otherwise, the report will appear blank, even after the data has been retrieved from the database.

Test Note 2: Using the Link panel of the Crystal Reports' Report wizard

The Report Wizard includes a Link pane which will appear when relationships are defined among selected source tables. For example, the following Link panel shows relationships between tables in the IQ 12.7 demo database. The Link panel provides the Index Legend buttion to display the Order Links dialog box, which is shown and described further below.

The "Link" panel of the Report wizard shows the relationship of the tables (click on the "Index Legend..." button to see the meaning of the colored links). To tailor the order of the links, click the "Order Links..." button, which will bring up the following dialog:

To change the ordering of the joins, highlight a link and click on either the up or down arrow icons in the upper right region of the dialog. When finished, click on "OK" from the "Order Links" dialog to return to the Link panel of the Report wizard.

Test Note 3: Indicating data is binary in Crystal Reports

When an IQ database is created with the default options and binary data is retrieved from the database, Crystal Reports will display the data as a string of hexadecimal characters, with no indication the data are binary.

Workaround: There are two ways to return binary data in Crystal Reports indicating the data are binary:

• Enable the ASE_BINARY_DISPLAY option on the IQ database as follows. (Note that there is not a similar option for SA):

Connect to the IQ database using a Sybase Interactive SQL tool (Java or Classic) and enter the following command:

set option ASE_BINARY_DISPLAY='ON'

Or, connect to the IQ database using Sybase Central, enable this propery in the database properties.

• Add a "Formatting Formula" in Crystal Reports to highlight 'Binary' data. This will work for both IQ and SA.

When binary data is retrieved from the database, Crystal Reports will display it as a string of hexadecimal characters, with no indication that it is binary data. In order to prefix the data with a '0x' (or other user-defined tag), the user must manually add it. The following method may be used to do this:

1. Select a binary data field on the report generated by Crystal Reports
2. Select the Crystal Reports’ menu item “Report -> Formula Workshop…”

3. Expand the "Formatting Formulas" folder, navigate to the name of the binary field, right-click and select "New Formatting Formula...":

4. Select the “Display String” formula, and click on the [ Use Editor ] button (or double-click the line item “Display String”):

5. Type the desired prefix in quotes, a space, the '+' symbol, and another space, then double-click on the field in the "Report Fields" pane above the text entry area:

6. Click on the "Save" button to store this formatting formula.
7. If there are multiple binary fields in the report, the others can be prefixed at this point, by right-clicking on each under the "Details" section of the "Formatting Formulas" folder, and repeating the steps above.
8. When finished defining the prefixes for the other fields, click on the "Save and close" button in the Formula Workshop to return to the report view.

Test Note 4: Using the "Field Formatter" to modify how a numeric field is displayed

In some cases, the data stored in IQ and retrieved for inclusion in a Crystal Reports report is smaller (fraction) than the default display settings in Crystal Reports. In this case, Crystal Reports will round the data down and display "0.00" for that field.

Also, when a count function was used in a query, the resulting count value appeared as a decimal value with ".00" appended at the end of the value, rather than an integer value. For example, this was seen on a report which was derived from the following SQL query:

select sales_order.region, customer.state, customer.city, count(sales_order.id)
from sales_order, customer
where sales_order.cust_id = customer.id
group by sales_order.region, customer.state, customer.city
order by sales_order.region asc, customer.state asc, customer.city asc

The appearance of the numeric values can be changed by formatting the count field using the 'Field Formatter'. To do this, right-click on the count field, select Field Formatter.

From the Field Formatter, click on the "Customize..." button:

From the Custom Style dialog, click on the drop-down list next to 'Decimals'.

• To display integer values, select "1" with no decimal places, at the top of the list.
• To display the most accuracy supported by Crystal Reports, select the number with ten zeros after the decimal point, at the bottom of the list (1.0000000000):

For extremely small numbers, click also on the drop-down list next to 'Rounding':

• To display extremely small numbers, select the smallest fraction at the top of the list (0.0000000001):

Click OK on the Custom Style dialog, and OK on the Field Formatter dialog to return to the report view.

Note that Sybase IQ and SA are capable of storing numbers with much more accuracy than Crystal Reports is capable of displaying. See Test Note 11 for more information.

Test Note 5: ODBC Export

Crystal Reports provides a function to export a report back to a database, using ODBC. This function works as expected, but it should be noted that Crystal Reports is performing a commit after each line of the report is inserted to the database.

Note: Sybase IQ is not optimized for this type of line-by-line insert and commit. It would be more efficient to employ one of the following methods to incorporate report data into the IQ database:

• export the report to another file format (e.g. Crystal Reports - RPT, or Microsoft Word - DOC), and then load the report as a single object in the IQ database, or
• export the report as a series of records into a file (e.g. comma-separated values - CSV, or tab-separated text - TTX), and then use the IQ bulk load facility to bring the data into IQ in a more efficient manner.

Sybase provides several methods for loading data into IQ. One method is to use Interactive SQL (dbisql), which can be set up to invoke an SQL script from commands stored in a command (.sql) file. Another method is to use the IQ Bulk Copy utility (iq_bcp). For more information about these utilities, refer to the IQ Utility Guide, which can be viewed on-line at: http://infocenter.sybase.com/help/index.jsp?topic=/com.sybase.infocenter.dc00168.1270/html/iqutil/title.htm. Chapter 2 describes the Interactive SQL command. Chapter 3 describes the Bulk Copy utility, among other utilities.

Test Note 6: Wildcard Specification and Results Returned

Crystal Reports uses different characters to represent wildcards in 'LIKE' expressions than those used in standard SQL. The standard wildcards used by Sybase IQ are the percent sign (%), which matches zero or more characters, and the underscore (_), which matches any single character. The wildcards used by Crystal Reports Report Designer are the asterisk (*) which matches zero or more characters, and the question mark (?) which matches any single character.

In some cases, the data displayed in a report generated by Crystal Reports based on a query containing a 'LIKE' expression will differ from the data returned by the Sybase IQ interactive SQL tool with an equivalent 'LIKE' expression. Be advised that all reports using queries containing 'LIKE' expressions should be tested to ensure that they return the appropriate expected data. For additional details on the query inconsistencies, refer to the SAP Developer Network (SDN). Go to the Expert Forums » Crystal Reports and Xcelsius » Crystal Reports Design, and search for the thread: "Inconsistencies between CR wildcard (* and ?) and SQL std queries (% and _)". Existing SDN users may be able to navigate directly to this thread via the following link: https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/thread?forumID=300&threadID=1193114 (a valid SDN user id may be required in order to view this thread).

Test Note 7: Do not attempt to Copy Entire DB Catalog to Crystal Reports

While using the Standard Report Creation Wizard to create a new report, after selecting the connection point for a Sybase IQ database, the '>>' button will be activated in the wizard.

If this button is pressed, Crystal Reports will attempt to copy the entire database catalog into memory. Crystal Reports will first open a dialog similar to the following, to prompt the user to Enter Values:

Dialogs similar to the above dialog will appear multiple times (prompting for various other database objects), interspersed with the following error dialog:

"Crystal Reports Unknown Database Connector Error"

After several instances of the above error and dialogs similar to the 'Enter Values' dialog above, eventually Crystal Reports will generate an "Out of Memory" error.

Rather than copying the entire DB schema into Crystal Reports, the DB schema tree should be navigated down to the table level before selecting tables to include in the report as described in the Feature Example section of this report.

Test Note 8: ODBC DSNs defined in ODBC Administrator while Crystal Reports is running cannot be seen until Crystal Reports is restarted

If you use the ODBC Administrator to create a data source name (DSN) while Crystal Reports is open, you will not be able to see the new DSN in the list of Available Data Sources until you shut down and restart Crystal Reports.

Test Note 9: IQ 15.0 Sample iqdemo Database Schema

With Sybase IQ 15, you have the option to install the 15.0 iqdemo sample database or the 12.7 asiqdemo sample. However, neither is automatically created. Scripts to create both are included. So, you may choose. For the certification tests, the 15.0 database was created and tested.

Test Note 10: To ensure the correct driver is loaded use the ODBC Administrator installed with the Sybase database client software

In some tests Sybase experienced problems loading the correct ODBC drivers on the 64-bit Microsoft Windows operating systems. To avoid this problem, Sybase recommends using one of the ODBC Administrators installed with the Sybase IQ 15.0 Database Client software. Both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the Administrators are installed. For the 32-bit version of Crystal Reports, be sure to use the 32-bit version.

Test Note 11: Data Types tested and related notes

This section contains a table listing the data types tested for IQ 15 and SA 11. Following the table are test notes and workarounds for possible data type issues.

Data Types tested

A sampling of following IQ 15.0 and SA 11 data types were tested. Maximum values (or large values where maximum values are theoretical and restricted by hardware) and small values as well as null and not null values were tested. See Test Note 4 for information about formatting data, such as decimal values, and see the notes following the table below for additional information about data types.

Types	Sybase IQ 15.0	SQL Anywhere 11
Exact Numeric Integer Types	tinyint, smallint, int, unsigned int, bigint, unsigned bigint,	tinyint, smallint, int, unsigned int, bigint and unsigned bigint. Crystal Reports does not support tinyint. Also note that the maximum int value tested displayed in the report as ####. When the field was selected, right-clicked and choose Browsed, the data displayed as expected. See Issue 2 for information about problems with the bigint type.
Exact Numeric Decimal Types	decimal(10,4), (19,4), (8,8), (31,0), smallmoney, money. See Test Note 4 for information about formatting numeric data and the notes following this table information about problems with decimal types.	decimal(10,4, (19,4), (8,8) and (31,0), numeric(18,0), money and smallmoney.
Approximate Numeric Float Types	float, real and double. See the notes following this table for information about problems with float types.	float, real, double
Character Types	char(1) and (254), varchar(10) and (254), long varchar(300), CLOB (see LOB below)	char(1) and (254), varchar(10) and (254), long varchar(300), nchar, text
Date/Time Types	date, time, timestamp, smalldatetime, datetime	date, time, timestamp, datetime, smalldatetime
Binary Types	bin, varbinary	binary, varbinary
Bit Array Types	Not supported.	varbit and long varbit
Large Object Types	CLOB (long varchar - tested character strings having a length of 300 bytes) and blob (long binary - tested with jpg data of size 20kb, bmp data of size 100kb and gif data of size 300kb). Crystal Reports displayed CLOB data properly, but BLOB data did not display in Crystal Reports. See the notes following this table for information about BLOB-type handling.	CLOB (long varchar - tested character strings having a length of 275 bytes) and blob (long binary - tested with jpg data of size 20kb, bmp data of size 100kb and gif data of size 300kb). Crystal Reports displayed CLOB data properly, but BLOB data did not display in Crystal Reports. See the notes following this table for information about BLOB-type handling.
Multi-byte Data	In the form of Simplified Chinese data inserted into a varchar column in a UTF8 database	In the form of Simplified Chinese data inserted into a varchar column in a UTF8 database.
User-defined Types	Based on char and numeric identity types	Based on char and numeric identity types

Limits of size and precision on numerical data

Crystal Reports has limitations for display of minimum and maximum values of the following types:

bigint: Sybase IQ and SA are capable of storing integers with a magnitude of 9.22x10^18, and with an accuracy of about 18 digits. Crystal Reports will convert large integers to scientific notation, and only displays an accuracy up to 11 digits (10 places after the decimal point).

Real: Sybase IQ and SA are capable of storing real numbers with a magnitude of nearly 3.4x10^38, and with an accuracy of about 18 digits. Crystal Reports will convert reals to scientific notation, and only displays an accuracy up to 11 digits (10 places after the decimal point).

Float: Sybase and SA are capable of storing floating point numbers as large as 76 digits before the decimal point, or as small as 96 digits after the decimal point. Crystal Reports will convert large floating point numbers to scientific notation, and only displays an accuracy to 11 digits (10 places after the decimal point). Crystal Reports will convert small floating point numbers to zero, if the number is less than .0000000001. Accuracy of small fractions is lost in the display as the fraction gets smaller (e.g. numbers between .0000000010 and .0000000099 will only be displayed with two significant digits of accuracy).

Bigint, real and float values can be displayed with an accuracy of up to 11 digits by changing display format in Crystal Reports (see Test Note 4 above). This includes extremely large numbers that are automatically converted to scientific notation by Crystal Reports.

Crystal Reports fails to display some long float types (double) properly

Sybase IQ is capable of storing double-length numbers, up to 1.79x10^308, with an accuracy of about 18 digits (17 after the decimal point), and numbers as small as 1.79x10^-38. Crystal Reports does not handle the extremely large numbers properly, displaying "1.#INF000000e+000", rather than an approximation of the data

Crystal Reports does not display BLOB data (Binary Large OBject)

Crystal Reports is capable of retrieving and displaying Character Large OBject (CLOB) data, but will not display Binary Large OBject (BLOB) data. No errors are generated. The report generated by Crystal Reports simply has white-space where the BLOB data should appear. Three different types of long Varian (BLOB) data were tested:

• pg data of size 20kb
• bmp data of size 100kb
• gif data of size 300kb

None of these data types resulted in the display of any data in the resulting report.

The Crystal Reports documentation mentions that BLOBs are supported. See page 153 of the Crystal Reports Users Guide here: http://help.sap.com/businessobject/product_guides/cr2008/en/xir3_cr_usergde_en.pdf

Note that the Crystal Reports documentation also describes how to embed a graphic into a report by retrieving graphics data from a file (vs. querying a database for the graphics data). This was not tested, as it is not relevant to the interaction of Crystal Reports with Sybase IQ.

Test Note 12: Crystal Reports does not re-initiate a terminated connection

Although Crystal Reports correctly captures and displays an ODBC connection failure, it does not detect or properly deal with a dropped ODBC connection. The following errors are displayed to the user:

then:

A subsequent attempt by the user to retrieve data via the same ODBC Data Source name does not automatically reconnect to the database (or prompt the user to supply authentication credentials). If forced by the user, Crystal Reports appears to try re-using the dropped connection, eventually becoming unresponsive. If this occurs, the user must shut-down Crystal Reports and restart it before attempting to connect to a database using the same ODBC Data Source name.

To avoid this situation:

1. Close an ODBC connection from within Crystal Reports when there are known database connectivity issues (including database shutdown), and then
2. Re-open the ODBC connection when the connectivity issue has been resolved (or the database has been brought back on-line). See Setup and Configuration above for details on establishing an ODBC connection.

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Issues and Incompatibilities

No issues were found during testing for which there are not workarounds. Any such issues are documented with the workarounds in the Test Notes section.

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Test Environment

This section provides details about the test environment.

Crytal Reports and Sybase Database Client Machine

Hardware or Software	Description or Version
Machine	1 virtual CPU VM on Dell PowerEdge 6850, 4 CPU x 2.593 GHz, running VMWare ESX Server version 3.5
Operating system	Windows XP Professional SP2, 64-bit
Memory (RAM)	1 GB
Disk	20 GB
Network	TCP/IP Ethernet E1000
Reporting Tool	Crystal Reports 2008, version 12.0
Database Client software	Sybase IQ 15.0 Database Client for Widnows, which includes the 11.0 versions of the 32-bit Sybase IQ and SQL Anyhwere ODBC drivers

Sybase IQ Machine

Hardware or Software	Description or Version
Processors	Four 1.8 GHZ Ultra SPARC IV (64-bit)
Memory	32 GB RAM
Disk Space	1 TB
Network hardware and software	Ethernet, TCP/IP
Operating System	64-bit Sun Solaris 10 with language packs installed
Analytics database	64-bit Sybase IQ 15.0 Enterprise Edition

SQL Anywhere Machine

Hardware or Software	Description or Version
Machine	Intel(R) Xeon(R) E7320 @ 2.13 GHZ virtual CPU VM
Operating system	Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP2 x64 Edition Version 2003 Service Pack 2
Memory (RAM)	3.75 GB
Disk	20 GB
Network	TCP/IP Ethernet E1000
Database software	64-bit Network Server, SQL Anywhere 11.0.1.2044

 

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Other Sources of Information

Sybase e-shop

Sybase provides product and technical documentation online at mysybase.com, including the certification reports written by the Sybase Interoperability Services Group. You may also order paper versions of product manuals through Sybase's online store, http://e-shop.sybase.com.

Sybase Partner Program

For more information about the Sybase Partner Program, please visit the Sybase Partner Program web site, http://www.sybase.com/partner.

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Vendor Contact Information

Vendor Name: Business Objects, an SAP Company

Address: Headquarters: 3030 Orchard Parkway / San Jose, CA 95134

Technical Support Number: (U.S.) +1.866.890.7686

Email Support: (U.S.) support.bosapamerica@sap.com

Web sites:

Technical Support - http://www.businessobjects.com/support/

SAP Developer Network - Crystal Reports Community Forum - https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/boc

Product Documentation - http://help.sap.com/content/bobj/overview/index.htm

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