How do I grep (search) a Crystal report for all uses of a column?

Question

I am trying to remove all references to a table from a Crystal XI report. Crystal is telling me that a column from that table is currently being used, because there is a little green check mark over the field in the field viewer. Also, if I try to remove the entire table, I get a warning. The warning is almost useless though because it doesn't tell me where the field is used. Now, back when programmers were real programmers, and mice were things cats chased, I could just grep a directory or file and find all references to a variable I was interested in. But how do I do this in Crystal? I have already tried exporting the report to a Report Definition, which helped find some instances of the troublesome field. Unfortunately, that format does not include all formulas, just some. Please tell me I don't have to buy a third party app (or write my own COM thingy) just to do this seemingly simple thing.

EDIT to add details about tangential point: In case anyone is wondering, I am not crazy - I have duplicated the issue where a formula's definition does not show up in the exported Report Definition. I created a new blank report, created one formula named stealth that returns 1234. I then used that formula in the Section Expert for the details section, in the "suppress" formula, setting it to {@stealth} == 0. the use of the formula shows up, but not the definition. So when my unwanted column was used in the formula, I was not be able to find it! Here's what the rpt def looks like (after deleting some blank lines):

     Crystal Report Professional v11.0 (32-bit) - Report Definition
    1.0 File Information
     Report File: 
     Version: 11.0
    2.0 Record Sort Fields
    3.0 Group Sort Fields
    4.0 Formulas
    4.1 Record Selection Formula

    4.2 Group Selection Formula

    4.3 Other Formulas
    5.0 Sectional Information
    5.1 Page Header Section
     Visible, Keep Together
    5.2 Page Footer Section
     Visible, New Page After, Keep Together, Print At Bottom of Page
    5.3 Report Header Section
     Visible, New Page Before
    5.4 Report Footer Section
     Visible, New Page After
    5.5 Details Section
     Visible
     Subsection.1 
      Visible, Keep Together
      Format Formulas
      Visible: {@stealth}= 0

Answer 1

If you right click on the field in Field Explorer and select Find in Formulas, it should bring up a dialog listing all of the places it is being used in formulas. On the left hand side of the dialog is a tree of all the possible places it could be, including oddball places like record selector and page formatting functions. Unfortunately, it does not seem to list running total fields.

EDIT: Oops, all the places it exists is listed at the bottom of the dialog; the tree view is the entire "DOM" of the report.

Answer 2

If all else fails ...

File -> Export -> Export Report, then choose the Report Definition (TXT) option.

That will give you a plain-text representation of every element of the report. You can grep or CTRL-F or (insert search tool of your choice) through that. "Find in Formulas" usually works, but I've had to go the export route a couple of times, for no apparent reason.

Edit: Of course, if I'd bothered to completely read your post, I'd see that you've already done this.

Very curious.

Answer 3

This was tested on XIr2...

You change the tables datasource through the "set datasource location" dialog. Now, when it goes into the column mapping mode, uncheck match-type and pick a new column that would cause an error in a formula. (i.e if the column you're looking for is a string replace it with a datetime column). Go to the preview and you should get an error box like "A string is required here.", close that error and up pops the offending formula!

Answer 4

I know this is an old post, but...

Not knocking the Find in Formulas, it's been saving me today, but i was having trouble finding the last instance of the field. Even after all of the formulas and the droppings on the report were taken care of, I still had one lone use hiding somewhere.

I found it hiding as a Subreport Link. Right click on the Subreport -> "Change Subreport Links..." and there was the culprit. Dropping in this post because I figured someone else might have this problem too.