HTML is used to store some text formatting and special html characters in Biotics as shown in the table below. The html formatting codes have not changed between Biotics4 and Biotics5, but special html characters have. In Biotics4, carriage returns were stored as <br> and the characters <, >, and & were stored as those characters. But all of those are invalid html and have been changed to valid html in Biotics5, as follows:

Biotics rich text boxes display the formatting and special html characters as they should look, not as html codes, but the html codes are stored in the database. You can see the codes if you click the Source button in any rich text box. You will also see the codes when you export data from the database, e.g. by running a query.

Special html characters were not converted during the conversion from Biotics4 to Biotics5, but any time you edit data in a rich text field and save, the special html characters in that field will be converted. So the representation of these characters will be inconsistent in your data. There shouldn’t be any problem having the inconsistency, but any scripts that look for these values will have to take it into account.

Converting and removing html codes in queries using HTML2CHAR

You can use the HTML2CHAR function (attached) in your queries to convert special html characters and/or remove html formatting tags for italics, bold, and underline.

HTML2CHAR can be used for VARCHAR2 or CLOB fields. It takes 3 parameters: string_in, BR, and strip_fmt. For example, you could use "select HTML2CHAR(g_classification_com,'L','N') from element_global". For the string or field specified in the first parameter (string_in), the function does the following:

1. Converts the following HTML Entities to the proper text character:

2. Converts <br> and <br /> (html tags for carriage return) to other characters depending on your choice for second parameter (BR):

3. By default also strips out all Biotics html format tags (italics, bold, and underline) [(strip_fmt) = 'Y'].

Enter 'N' for the third parameter (strip_fmt) to leave <i></i>, <b></b>, and <u></u> in your data.

NOTE: HTML tags not used by Biotics will not be stripped out. There is a Stripper function that strips out ALL html tags (see Function to remove html tags from a string of text), but that function will strip out any data containing a < followed by a >, even if < and > were used to represent less than and greater than in a field. (Fields edited in Biotics5 Tracker use html codes in place of < and >, so this issue applies only data edited in Biotics4 or uploaded without converting the characters.)

If you wish to strip out anything betwen < and > that is not handled in html2char, use the following expression (entering whatever you like for the 2nd parameter):

stripper(html2char(my_field,' ' ,'N'))

Sample HTML2CHAR usage showing several combinations of options:

select element_global_id,

g_classification_com,

html2char(g_classification_com),

html2char(g_classification_com,'L'),

html2char(g_classification_com,'4','N'),

html2char(g_classification_com,'***')

from element_global

where (g_classification_com like '%<br>%'

or g_classification_com like '%<br />%'

or g_classification_com like '%amp;%')

and rownum < 21

Converting html codes in Word

See NS Word macros for use with Biotics.

Converting html codes in Crystal Reports

See HTML Conversion in Crystal Reports.