I am trying to generate open document URL for DESKI reports and want to have output format as PDF. When I use sOutputFormat=P in report URL,it is running fine and showing the output in pdf format after refreshing but the same is not working for some DESKI reports after refreshing I just get a blank page. I ran the report again removing all prompt parameters from URL keeping only parameter now the report runs fine and shows me in PDF
Are there in limit in passing parameters through Opendocument URL??
While some reports running fine with 2 or 3 passing parameters but if report has around 10 parameters then Opendocument URL is taking long time to run and PDF view mode is not working
Any inputs on this will be really helpful…thanks in advance
I think there is some limit in no of parameters passing in opne URL document.It’s running fine and genrating PDF if I remove some passing parameters from URL
I don’t remember the exact number, 2083 might be correct as M H Mohammed stated, but I do recall something interesting…
We used OpenDocument exclusively in a previous company and I remember tracking down a similar issue. Our problem was due strictly to character length, and while I only had one or two reports that had more than 5 or 6 parameters, I believe I had one that had up to 12 (most were optional, so I don’t recall what was sent to OpenDoc exactly).
The interesting part, was that there were TWO URLS that had to be considered.
From what I remembered, and this is a few years ago, we figured out the URL had a limit… lets call it “X” number of characters. (Just like Mohammed mentioned). But that OpenDoc itself was being used as a wrapper to another web page… which in turn had the same limit. So while we thought we had enough character space, we in fact didn’t because the ‘wrapper’ was taking up some space.
That 2083 might already take that into account… but what we did was rather simple.
We changed every text prompt to a single letter. So instead of asking “Select a Department:”, our text was simple “A”. Because we used a web page for the user to choose prompts, the exact text on the report was never visible and the lack of descriptions didn’t matter. Once we did that, we had enough characters to parse correctly.
You could temorarily remove all your prompt text to letters… that should tell you for certain if it’s a character limit vs # of parameters.
Never trust what you read in an SAP manual (Opps did I say that outloud? )
That SAP document didn’t provide the WHOLE story.
Here’s what it says on SAP’s help site:
[quote:8adcdb0117=“SAP.com”]
URL length limit
OpenDocument may add characters to your URL when it redirects to the
requested document; however, encoded URLs cannot exceed the maximum
character limit for the supported browsers. For example, certain versions of
Internet Explorer limit the URL length to 2083 characters. Therefore, know
the browser character limit to ensure your URL will be within the maximum
limit.
[/quote]
Notice they didn’t say how many characters OpenDoc itself adds, only that it does. The total “encoded URL” cannot exceed 2083 after OpenDoc adds whatever it adds.
Nor did they say if BOBJ has a limit, they only talk about Microsoft Explorer. (Granted that’s the only browser they officially support… but still)
For IE, 2083 is correct but that’s not what a user needs to take into consideration when counting thier URL.
Even Microsoft acknowledges that the url is realistically limited to 2048 in the path portion.
See This link for the exact Internet Explorer section.
I had a spreadsheet around here somewhere which I put together once to give me the exact size of my URL (After encoding, I figured out the calculation from sifting through asp pages in tomcat) and a warning if it was too big… i’ll see if I can locate and get the exact number/calculations.
Either way… if the OP shortens the prompt text to a single letter for testing, they will know for certain if the issue is truely a URL character limit, vs a # of parameters limit. (which was the original question I believe).
[/url]
I tried by reducing the characters like changing prompt messages to like A or B and so on and it is working good and I can view in PDF format but however as said if URL is exceeding more than 488 characters then URL is not working. but as Mohammed said in above replied it is 2083 characters??. I am wondering if that 2083 chrater will work only for viewing in HTML mode?? not in PDF mode…?
Glad it is working that confirms what I thought and that it’s a Character limit and not a parameter count issue.
Now the issue is exactly how many characters do you have to use…
The number Mohammed mentioned from SAP’s document, is just the standard IE’s URL Limit. Note the words in SAP’s document “…after encoding…”.
That’s the key.
The process works like this:
You call an Open Document URL from http:////opendoc.aspx?
That URL gets fed through the OpenDoc code, and then it redirects you to a final OUTPUT url. It’s that final ouput URL that must be below the character limit AS WELL as the input. (if the input is too long it won’t have all the info to process… if the output is too long, it can’t display in the browser).
So what you need to do is two things:
Count the stuff of everything you do not enter into the pre-encoded opendoc URL. This would be your servername/path side of the URL.
Count the same side on the output side.
Once you have those two counts… take whichever is GREATER, (I call that reserved character count) and subtract from ~2083 (I’d just use 2000 to be safe). That is the number of possible URL characters that you have available to use for your prompts and document title.
Now there are things you can do to shorten the ‘reserved’ amount within your network. Work with your Internet team to perhaps create short DNS lookup names to access your server with a shorter URL.
So instead of something like http://Server01ClusterA/BusinessObjects/Tomcat/Opendoc.aspx
you end up with something like http://BOBJ/Opendoc.aspx.
Depending on your Web Server the method to acomplish varies, but your web team should know how to shorten URLs rather easily.
Good luck… glad it’s working at least…
PS - In case anyone knows: I never had the chance to actually test URL lengths in Non-IE environments, so I wonder if the issue would still occur. (I know the output can be greater than 2083, but is the opendoc logic hard coded for a char limit?)
Count the stuff of everything you do not enter into the pre-encoded opendoc URL. This would be your servername/path side of the URL.
Count the same side on the output side.
Not sure exactly if I calculated correctly or not but exactly count I am entering without parameters & documnet id is 73 characters.
Overall URL that I am passing with all parameters&Soutputformat=p is having 566 characters only
once I enter this URL opendoc redirecting or adding some characters.that lenght is total 601 characters ( I have copied this from browser)
which is way less that 2083 but still my open document URL is not working.
Remeber my URL is working fine in HTML mode . Report refershes and prints well in HTML format…but when I add sOutputFormat=P then
I get a blank page…??
Did any one tried passing more than 566 characters in their URL??
I know in the past I’ve used well over 566 characters in the URL… I came very close to that 2000 mark many times. (On XIR3, SP1 at the time).
However I don’t honestly know if anyone used PDF Mode before with it. We always used HTML and then Exported to PDF as needed.
Perhaps PDF mode passes the opendoc through some other asp’s which might change the mechanism. The only thing I can suggest at this point would be to open a ticket with SAP perhaps (their dev’s might know) or manually go through some of the asp pages yourself and see if you can find the issue.
My hunch is that somewhere in the asp pages, along the path between you sending the URL and the browser receiving it, the URL is getting truncated, either intentionally or due to a character limit.
(BOB member since 2007-10-12)
(BOB member since 2010-06-16)
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