Hi

I am new to Informix dbs and would appreciate if you could help me understand how to compile .ACE files to .ARC files?

Like command?

Make? What would the complete syntax be?

I also have some .ACT files. What are these?

Regards
Shajju

Haven't worked with ACE reports in many years but I assume you're working with some version of INFORMIX SE (standard engine)?

You can compile ACE reports using the isql editor tool. We don't have SE on any server right now but I'm pretty sure if you login as informix and your environment variables are set correctly you would navigate to the directory with the ACE reports and key in isql & press enter.

You'll be presented with a ring menu and you should choose REPORT. I don't remember what you'll see from this point forward ... it's been too many years ... but you'll see something like EDIT or MODIFY or COMPILE or something, you should be able to figure it out from there.

There's also a command line tool 'saceprep' that will let you compile ace files to arc files without using isql.

Thanks for the info guys.

I can navigate to the folder where the .ace, .arc and .act files are present.

I will amend the .ace with the new counters that need to be retreived from the db and then:

type isql (in the same folder) and press enter?

or

type saceprep.ace report name and press enter?

Regards
Shajju

Would the SACEPREP tool be available /user/bin?

I checked this location but couldn't see it.

Hi all

Been away for a couple of months.

Am still facing the issue of finding out how to compile ACE reports into ARC files

Could someone please help me with this?

Where would I find this SACEPREP tool?
How exactly would I use isql to compile the ACE report?

Thanks
Shajju

Hi shajju,

you probably have a RUNTIME licence of I-SQL and not a DEVELOPPERlicense.
To check this, cd $INFORMIXDIR/etc and check whether you have a file called ISQLRT-cr for Runtime, or ISQL-cr for developpment.

The runtime license does not allow you to compile forms, and reports, but the development license does.

I also have seen some sneaky companies delete or inactivate by any mean the saceprep or fglform ( form compiler)...

Also, in the same directory, you will find the list of (originally ) installed files in the sqlrtfiles for the runtime license, or sqlfiles
for the development license.

If one is missing, someone has deleted it.

Hope this helps.

Thanks, will do.

Will search and let you know.

OK I checked INFORMIXDIR...

It's ISQL-cr.

Would you know how to add a new counter (to extract from the Informix database) to the ACE report and then compile it to get the corresponding ARC file?
Would you also know what the .ACT is for?

Hi shajju.

So you have a development license and you should be able to modify and compile your report.
The basic method is to
1) modify the report source file ( called xxx.ace ) with your best editor
2) compile it with the following command: saceprep xxx.ace
3) if your compile succeeds, you obtain a xxx.arc
4) to run it, sacego xxx

This also can be done with the isql Report menu. You will find the user manual
there

All you want to do is clearly explained.

I'm not sure about the .act extension. And my Isql environment is not ready to run.
As far as I remember, the error files after compile are called xxx.err, although I'm not sure.

Also in the $INFORMIXDIR/demo/sql/en_us/0333/ you will find a number of interesting examples that can help you to achieve your purpose. Look at the *.ace files.

Hopes this helps
Eric

Thanks.

I modified the existing ace report with 3 more counters that I need fetching from the Informix database and tried compiling using SACEPREP but got the .err file saying:

# Environment variable INFORMIXSERVER must be set.
# See error number -25560.

AND

# The cursor or statement is not available.
# See error number -404.

Regards
Shajju

I also tried using isql but whichever option I selected under Report, I got:

No write permission in current directory.

So I might just stick to using SACEPREP after I work out how to set the environment variable.

Thanks

Hi Sahjju,

The message is explicit: you really must set the INFORMIXSERVER environment variable.
$INFORMIXSERVER is the variable that identifies to which Informix instance you will connect. It is not possible to Informix if this variable is not set.

Look for the $INFORMIXDIR/etc/$ONCONFIG file, open it and search the DBSERVERNAME parameter value which is the value that you must set for INFORMIXSERVER.

Fix this error first, the second one may disappear after.

As for you clearly do not have write permissions in the directory you are in.

It is a permission issue that should be resolved by allowing your user to access, read and write in this directory.

OK thanks. But the thing that confuses me is that I made a copy of an existing ace report, amended it with 3 more counters that I'd like to retrieve from the db and tried to compile it.

So the E.V should already be set. The E.V is normally the db name, right? And that is already specified in the beginning of the file.