Dynamic text element rendering issue when contains very long text

I'm having trouble with a table element's rendering. 
 
One of the table's cells contains a dynamic text element. When this dynamic text element contains a very large value it causes rendering issues (both in HTML and PDF output). 
 
In HTML (and not PDF) the page just gets extended to accommodate the cell's contents, irrespective of its size. This can lead to very very long pages being shown in the viewer. This is similar to the issue described in: <a class='bbc_url' href='http://www.birt-exchange.org/org/forum/index.php/topic/24255-page-breaks-with-dynamic-text-leaves-page-empty/page__p__92801&.'>http://www.birt-exchange.org/org/forum/index.php/topic/24255-page-breaks-with-dynamic-text-leaves-page-empty/page__p__92801&.</a> 
 
In PDF the paging is correct. 
 
However, in HTML and PDF the long content is repeated many times. Why would this be happening? I'm guessing it's a BIRT bug? If so, is there a known workaround? 
 
I'm using Actuate 11SP3. 
 
Many thanks in advance.

Find more posts tagged with

Comments

mwilliams

Can you post a report that uses the sample database that shows your issue? This way I can see the setup and test. Thanks

jclarkson

Hi, 
 
Thanks for the response. 
 
I've attached an example .rptdesign which highlights the issue. 
 
As the schema of the sample DB doesn't contains any CLOBs (I've been using <a class='bbc_url' href='http://www.eclipse.org/birt/phoenix/db/dbschema/ClassicModelsDBSchema.jpg'>http://www.eclipse.org/birt/phoenix/db/dbschema/ClassicModelsDBSchema.jpg</a> as a guide) I have just used a simple JavaScript loop to simulate a very large value being returned. 
 
If you do a View Report in Web Viewer you can see that the page is just extended to fit all the content in. If you do a View as PDF you can see that the paging is correct. However, on page 4 of the PDF you can see that the next row does not immediately follow the previous one. 
 
In both rendering cases the contents of the very long string is repeated 4 times, I'm not sure if the number of repeats is proportional to the length of string. 
 
I've also included another issue I've been having in the .rptdesign. This is to do with text wrapping. Is it possible to force wrapping across lines even if there is no whitespace in the string? In the example I've just concatenated all the address elements of the OFFICES table and removed all whitespace. 
 
Many thanks for your help.

mwilliams

I think I understand why it's doing what it's doing. The space algorithm used to determine how much space is needed might be based on the number of "words". Since "var" and an integer are very short words, the algorithm would get very far off if it assumes an average word length of say, 5 or 6 characters (or more). As for the repeating. My guess would be that since you're using a function to display and since the last column is the one that the algorithm thinks is continuing, it runs the function again, displaying all of the text. This is all just a guess, but if you delete all but the first and last column in the table, the report only takes 7 pages in the web viewer. There is no repeating. If you delete 3 columns, the data is only displayed twice for each "row". There were some changes in BIRT 3.7, which will be in SP4. I'll try it in that and let you know if I see a difference.

mwilliams

The same happens in SP4. As for the wrapping of text with no break characters, you'll likely need to write a script to insert break characters based on a certain number of characters, or something.

jclarkson

Thanks for the reply.

I've written a script which splits the text in order to achieve the wrapping, thanks for the suggestion.

In terms of the repeating / incorrectly going onto the next page; is it fair to say that this is a bug with BIRT? If so, do I need to raise it anywhere? Are there any workarounds you can think of for resolving the issue in the meantime?

Many thanks.

jclarkson

Hi again Michael, 
 
I've got a partial workaround in place for the repeating issue. Instead of using dynamic text elements I now use text elements instead as they don't appear to exhibit the repeating issue. 
 
I've kept all data bindings the same and just included the following in the <pre class='_prettyXprint _lang-auto _linenums:0'>onRender</pre> hook for the text elements: 
 
<pre class='_prettyXprint _lang-auto _linenums:0'>
var d = this.getRowData().getColumnValue("OLD_STRING_VAL");
if (d) {
this.text = BIRTUtils.fixStr("" + d, vars["MAX_LENGTH"]);
}
</pre>
 
<pre class='_prettyXprint _lang-auto _linenums:0'>BIRTUtils.fixStr</pre> is a function which I've created to fix the wrapping issue. 
 
I've having a few problems with the PDF but I'll have a look at them in due course. 
 
Thanks.

mwilliams

Yeah. My guess is that it's a bug, with BIRT. Since you're using Actuate BIRT, I'll test it with OS BIRT to see if it happens there, too. If it does, I'll have you log the bug. If it's just Actuate BIRT, the bug will need to be logged through support, I believe.

mwilliams

It's the same in OS BIRT. Please log a bug at http://www.eclipse.org/birt/phoenix/reportabug.php

Thanks!

jclarkson

Hi Michael,

I've raised the bug... https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=386238.

Thanks for your help.

mwilliams

Thanks for the update!

cbond

I am having a similar issue rendering html on pdf output. I can't access the bug listed above. Do we have any updates on this topic?