NAV Text Object Handler

Administrator · **Posted:** Sat Sep 27, 2008 4:06 pm

NAV Text Object Handler
This download is a poorly written (I don't know C# at all) DLL file that exposes Søren's ability to Import From / Export To text files directly to NAV via Automation.

This would absolutely not be possible but for the wonderful work of Søren Nielsen, provided freely to the community on his blog, http://www.gotcal.com.

See the included example FOB for usage. Very bare-bones, but anyone who wants this can certainly make use of it.

To make use of this DLL (which is a .NET DLL), you'll have to use the included installation batch file, which relies on 'regasm' from the v2.0.050727 .NET Framework, typically located in C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework. You *must* run this in the same directory as the NAV Client or you'll get errors when attempting to use.

http://www.mibuso.com/dlinfo.asp?FileID=1012

Discuss this download here.

JDVyska · **Posted:** Sat Sep 27, 2008 6:33 pm

I'll be happy to discuss any details or provide source. I'm hoping folks can get really creative with this in the area of version control... whether linking to VCS or building an 'in NAV' VCS.

As for the code that accesses the NAV object tables? All came from http://gotcal.com/ - particularly this post. Søren explains how he managed it using the Running Object Table in this post. Thanks Søren!

Also thanks to Luc for putting up with a small array of emails trying to make it portable and safe to upload

Edit: I should clarify: I've tested this only with 5.0 and 5.0 SP1. I cannot answer to it working for earlier versions, and I'll try to test it with 2009 sometime later this week.

kine · **Posted:** Sun Sep 28, 2008 8:21 am

Thanks for that. I never had enough time to make something like that even when I read the blog few weeks ago. I will try when I had time.

For now one question: is it working correctly when I have more NAV clients opened on my PC?

SNielsen · **Posted:** Sun Sep 28, 2008 6:46 pm

Right now it will grab the first NAV instance from the Running Object Table, so no it does not support multiple running NAV versions at the same time.

I have an example for a all object exporter that queries the user like the Developers Toolkit does, so you can select what NAV client to export objects from (check the blog during this coming week).

Another interesting thing, is it allows you to extract objects to text without the use of a developer license! For importing though it honors the permissions, and throws a:
"HRESULT = 0x8004005 : You do not have permission to run the 'File, Import, Text' System"

But it will give end users access to do some object comparison, and version management. When we get a tool together for it.

PureHeart · **Posted:** Tue Sep 30, 2008 5:29 pm

Kine,
Based on the code of Søren Nielsen I've modified the functions to input also the instance of Navision to read so you'll be able to select the database and the company when you are calling the export function.
If you are interested I can explain in more detail what I did.

Søren,
Thank you so much again, Do you know if it would be possible to extract objects with NAS?
I'm trying with no success even if I leave a Navision Client opened...
Any Idea?

Thanks :wink:

JDVyska · **Posted:** Tue Sep 30, 2008 7:36 pm

Unfortunately, I've been told about and discovered a particularly challenging item: In the text export, the dll writes not the object name in the first line! It writes the object caption.

So, for example, if you have Form 50000 - Something Card and you set the form's caption to "My Awesome Form", the first line of the file would read:

Code: Select all

OBJECT Form 50000 My Awesome Form

I'm not sure if Søren will be able to help that, but I might able able to re-write the Export routine in the DLL to do a little post-processing fix to that item.

The other issue (thanks Matthias!) is that it uses local language strings, like german 'Ja' instead of 'Yes'. I might be able to do something clever with .stx files, but likely not anytime this week.

MatthiasKönig · **Posted:** Thu Oct 02, 2008 1:20 pm

no problem JDVyska

a little workaround: use this DLL with a Report and change the language... but this is not the fine way.

if there is an update, i will be happy to get this information

janpieter · **Posted:** Thu Oct 02, 2008 6:42 pm

Hello!

Thanks for the great idea! Good to see that we finally we can extract txt files automatically from Navision. I have been searching for this sollution. I knew there had to be a way because the developer tool was doing the same thing as well! Great job for everyone involved! =D>

So with this lead you gave me i dove into the problem a bit more. I rewrote some functions to share with you all; maybe you can improve your own software with it.

I added a companyname paramter to the objectdesinger class constructor. Since you can get the companyname with the COMPANYNAME instruction in Navision, this is the best way you can automatically select the database from where the DLL call is made. This is 100% foolproof unless you have multiple databases open with the same database name! (wich may occur maybe in upgrade projects)

Hopefully not too many bugs; i don't have a lot of time though this was too interesting to leave for weeks

ObjectDesigner class constructor rewrite:

Code: Select all

        public ObjectDesigner(String CompanyName)
        {
            Guid guid = new Guid("50000004-0000-1000-0001-0000836BD2D2");
            Hashtable runningObjects = GetActiveObjectList(DefaultMonikerName);

            foreach (DictionaryEntry de in runningObjects)
            {
                string progId = de.Key.ToString();
                if (progId.IndexOf("{") != -1)
                {
                    // Convert a class id into a friendly prog Id
                    progId = ConvertClassIdToProgId(de.Key.ToString());
                }
                
                if (progId.EndsWith(CompanyName))
                {
                    object getObj = GetActiveObject(progId);
                    if (getObj != null)
                    {
                        this._objectDesigner = getObj as IObjectDesigner;
                        break;
                    }
                    else
                    {
                        throw new Exception("Could not connect to Dynamics NAV " + progId);
                    }
                }
            }

            if (this._objectDesigner == null)
            {
                throw new Exception("Could not find a Dynamics NAV instance with companyname " + CompanyName );
            }
        }

And the wrapper class wich is exposed to COM (Navision) contains this function:

Code: Select all

        public void GetNavisionObject(int ObjectType, int ObjectID, string ObjectName, string CompanyName, string FileName)
        {
            //Codeunit = 5,
            //Dataport = 4,
            //Form = 2,
            //Report = 3,
            //Table = 1
            if (System.IO.File.Exists(FileName))
                System.IO.File.Delete(FileName);

            System.IO.FileStream fs;            
            System.IO.MemoryStream ob;
            ObjectDesigner od = new ObjectDesigner(CompanyName);
            ob = od.ReadObjectToStream((NavObjectType)ObjectType, ObjectID);

            fs = new System.IO.FileStream(FileName, System.IO.FileMode.OpenOrCreate);
            ob.WriteTo(fs);
            
            fs.Close();
            fs.Dispose();
            fs = null;

            ob.Dispose();
            ob = null;

            od = null;
        }

I bet it is not necesarry to explain what parameters should be put into the function from Navision

PureHeart · **Posted:** Fri Oct 03, 2008 10:29 am

Hello Hello!
I've also added as parameter the database name so you will be able from Navision to select the correct database and company (we could also add the SQL server).
Using the Database table you'll know the databse name if you are in SQL.
Modifing the function GetActiveObject you can return directly the object that you want without looping them later.

In the test of the GetActiveObject I've added the following code and then removed the for loop in the ObjectDesigner.

Code: Select all

                    if (displayName.IndexOf(dbname) != -1 &&
                        displayName.IndexOf(dbcompanyname) != -1)

janpieter · **Posted:** Fri Oct 03, 2008 5:33 pm

Hello me again!

Pureheart i don't think your code would be convinient in our case we commonly use local copies (just fdb file format) on our harddisk. I gues you won't be able to retrieve databasename from these navision instances? Although thanks for the input.

I have been working on the object caption / object name and yes/no local issue and came up with the following sollution wich is 99% secure. Only when you create a constant variable wich uses simular characters as the replaced strings the code might replace too much. I gues strings like '=Ja }' are not used in constant variable.

I replaced the ToMemoryStream function in the objectdesginer class with the following code. This code will create importable object text files for me. It returns an adjusted memorystream. When you save it all dutch and german 'Ja' strings will be converted to 'Yes' and the object caption is replaced with the object name.

Code: Select all

        private unsafe MemoryStream ToMemoryStream(IStream comStream, string ObjectName, string YesValue, string NoValue)
        {
            bool bFirst = true;

            MemoryStream stream = new MemoryStream();
            byte[] pv = new byte[100];
            uint num = 0;
            IntPtr pcbRead = new IntPtr((void*) &num);
            comStream.Seek((long) 0, 0, IntPtr.Zero);

            do
            {
                num = 0;
                comStream.Read(pv, pv.Length, pcbRead);

                // start - this part replaces object caption with object name
                // modify first line of file
                if (bFirst)
                {
                    System.Text.ASCIIEncoding enc = new System.Text.ASCIIEncoding(); 
                    string strFilePart = enc.GetString(pv);

                    char[] splitter = { '\r' };
                    char[] splitter2 = { ' ' };
                    
                    string[] arSplitted = new string[20];
                    string[] arSplitted2 = new string[20];

                    arSplitted = strFilePart.Split(splitter);
                    arSplitted2 = arSplitted[0].Split(splitter2);

                    arSplitted[0] = arSplitted2[0] + " " + arSplitted2[1] + " " + arSplitted2[2] + " " + ObjectName;
                    strFilePart = string.Join("\r", arSplitted);

                    num = (uint)strFilePart.Length;
                    pv = enc.GetBytes(strFilePart);
                    bFirst = false;
                }
                // end - this part replaces object caption with object name

                stream.Write(pv, 0, (int) num);
            }
            while (num > 0);

            // start - this part replaces local yes and no attributes with yes and no ENU captions
            string s = System.Text.Encoding.Default.GetString(stream.GetBuffer(), 0, (int)stream.Length);
            s = s.Replace("=" + YesValue + " }", "=Yes }");
            s = s.Replace("=" + YesValue + ";", "=Yes;");
            s = s.Replace("CONST(" + YesValue + ")", "CONST(Yes)");
            s = s.Replace("FILTER(" + YesValue + ")", "FILTER(Yes)");
            s = s.Replace("=" + NoValue + " }", "=No }");
            s = s.Replace("=" + NoValue + ";", "=No;");
            s = s.Replace("CONST(" + NoValue + ")", "CONST(No)");
            s = s.Replace("FILTER(" + NoValue + ")", "FILTER(No)");

            System.Text.UTF8Encoding utf8Encoding = new System.Text.UTF8Encoding();
            stream = new MemoryStream(utf8Encoding.GetBytes(s));  
            // end - this part replaces local yes and no attributes with yes and no ENU captions

            return stream;
        }

To provide this function with the proper parameters use this code in navision and create the com wrapper function with these parameters. Should work for all countries like this..!

code exports first 10 of every navision 3.70 objects

Code: Select all

CREATE(lclsAutoNavisionTextExport);                     

lrecObject.RESET;
lrecObject.SETRANGE(ID, 1, 10);
lrecObject.SETRANGE(Type, lrecObject.Type::Table, lrecObject.Type::Codeunit);
IF lrecObject.FIND('-') THEN
BEGIN
  REPEAT
    lclsAutoNavisionTextExport.GetNavisionObject(lrecObject.Type,
                                                 lrecObject.ID,
                                                 lrecObject.Name,
                                                 COMPANYNAME,
                                                 'c:\' + FORMAT(lrecObject.Type) + '_' + FORMAT(lrecObject.ID) + '.txt',
                                                 FORMAT(TRUE),
                                                 FORMAT(FALSE));
  UNTIL lrecObject.NEXT = 0;
END;

Have fun with this

JDVyska · **Posted:** Fri Oct 03, 2008 5:46 pm

Interesting...

I'll incorporate some of the proposed changes from this thread into a new release this weekend. I'll probably take jan's clever yes/no fix and make that a separate function call for multilingual uses, just to make the function calls simpler for most folks. Or I may create a codeunit wrapper to ease function calls to require minimal parameters. One of the two (or maybe both, since the target audience is developers, naturally).

Thanks for all the continuing development!

PureHeart · **Posted:** Fri Oct 03, 2008 5:51 pm

janpieter the problem is that if you have more than one fdb opened with the same company name the dll will fail to recognize the correct instance of Navision...Intestead having the db name (could be a setup name...) will allow you to select the correct Instance! :mrgreen:

janpieter · **Posted:** Sat Oct 04, 2008 4:23 am

JDVyska,

If you like i can send you my VS 2005 project. Just PM your e-mail. I forgot to mention that i somehow didn't get your application to work; it just crashes when you call the function.

Since it is not a big deal; i recreated the C# wrapper anyway, because i also like to fool arround with it :mrgreen:

Purheart,

You are absolutely right; when i think it over it is too poor to rely only on companyname. Happens often that you work on a live database and a testdatabase who share the same companyname. And that is waiting for a disaster to happen, where everyone is blindly relying on version management software using this system.

A setup entry is a lot better; though i still find it is not perfect as databases are being copied.

I will keep thinking. I have a way to get the window handles of the current used navision session; maybe i'll find a way to extract preciser information about the used client process using those handles.

janpieter · **Posted:** Fri Oct 10, 2008 5:41 pm

I've worked out a thought about how to get a fool-proof reference to the calling navision client without relying on the company name which isn't unique.

I was thinking of creating a mostly empty dummy object in Navision with an unique code hidden in the tablename just before calling the DLL. In the DLL we can read this object first and compare it's unique value with the value passed into the function from navision. When it matches, then we know we have the current session.

Now i wouldnt rely on the randomizer function to generate an unique number. I don't think the randomizer is random at all. The hwnd definitly is unique i have a VB6 function that successfully retrieves the current window handle. This is a way that can work although i should convert this function to C#.

Maybe there is a better way. Any thoughts?? Any navision command i can use to generate some string that is unique for every session you have opened??

Maybe other thoughts on this issue you may want to share?

JDVyska · **Posted:** Fri Oct 10, 2008 5:49 pm

One of my coworkers claims to have figured out a way. He's been going full tilt on that for a while, since he is envisioning ways to massively improve the toolset to help speed upgrades and such.

Hopefully he'll be sharing that to me soon. He also split up the DLL a few ways to make it more well-designed. The COM interface becomes just an interface to the DLL, some other odds and ends like that.

mibuso.com

NAV Text Object Handler

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