hi
iam a newbie in oracle apps and i have a small doubt regarding reports and pl/sql registration.

why are we placing .rdf file in module specific directory and
not compiling it(.rep) unlike pl/sql or forms before registration?

thanks in advance for your comments.

Hi hemanth,

Oracle provides the source files for forms and reports so they can be compiled within your unique applications environment.  Recall that reports are executed by the concurrent manager using the report runtime component included in the technology stack.  The runtime engine version can vary within installations based on your operating system and how current you are with the technology stack.  Because of this, reports are recompiled when updated via. a patch or upgrade to ensure they were compiled and saved by the same version of the reports tool that will be executing them.  They can also be recompiled in mass (all reports for a particular module, or even all reports for all modules) using the ad utilities or command line scripts.

If you are developing custom reports that will be integrated into your applications environment, I would suggest including a compile step in the migration process to ensure the report is compiled using the reports engine on the concurrent manager server.  I’ve seen some issues with reports in the past if the report was developed on a Windows platform using Developer, and then transferred to a unix box for execution but not recompiled.  Sometimes strange errors can result.

Regards,
Michael Siebert

usually you dont have to compile the rdf to .rep , u can compile the program in your local machine just to see if there are no errors and then you can ftp the file to server , and run the concurrent program ..

You are right, you don’t have to compile the RDF to a REP, but it is good practice to compile the RDF developed on a client to an RDF on the server it will be deployed on.  I’ve seen cases where a report that was developed on a client (such as windows) will compile and run fine on the client, but will error on the server (such as unix) as a concurrent request.  Recompiling the RDF on the server using the server report tool will usually resolve the error.  This may be due to slight differnces in the way platforms compile and save the RDF file, or due to slight differences in the version of the report tool running on the client and the server.

Regards,
Michael Siebert