Crystal Reports - "A string is required here" formula error

Question

I have a command line utility that generates one simple crystal report. I recently updated the project from .NET 1.1 to .NET 3.5 using the Visual Studio 2008 migrator and am now getting an error that I had never received before. The problem is in the work_order formula which is as follows: ``` stringVar nvl_ship_wrk_id := "0"; stringVar nvl_ship_wrk_seq := "0"; If Not IsNull({FeedBOLInput.ShipWrkId}) Then nvl_ship_wrk_id := {FeedBOLInput.ShipWrkId}; If Not IsNull({FeedBOLInput.ShipWrkSeq}) Then nvl_ship_wrk_seq := {FeedBOLInput.ShipWrkSeq}; nvl_ship_wrk_id & " - " & nvl_ship_wrk_seq; ``` And the error is: ``` - InnerException {"A string is required here. Error in File C:\...\temp_88c50533-02c6-4973-ae06-ed0ab1a603ac {0D5E96FB-038A-41C5-93A7-A9D199961377}.rpt: Error in formula <work_order>. 'stringVar nvl_ship_wrk_id := "0"; ' A string is required here."} System.Exception {System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException} ``` Does anyone have any idea what this can be? I'm out of clues.…

Accepted Answer

You can try to cast the {FeedBOLInput.ShipWrkId} and {FeedBOLInput.ShipWrkSeq} to a string to make sure that it is coming across as a string.

I'm not sure why what you have wouldn't work, but see if the below works for you.

```
stringVar nvl_ship_wrk_id := "0";
stringVar nvl_ship_wrk_seq := "0";

If Not IsNull({FeedBOLInput.ShipWrkId}) Then 
    nvl_ship_wrk_id := CStr({FeedBOLInput.ShipWrkId});

If Not IsNull({FeedBOLInput.ShipWrkSeq}) Then 
    nvl_ship_wrk_seq := CStr({FeedBOLInput.ShipWrkSeq});

nvl_ship_wrk_id & " - " & nvl_ship_wrk_seq;
```

Crystal Reports - "A string is required here" formula error

Solution

Problem