How to Read/Write Notes in Navision using C/AL

November 10, 2015     2 minute read

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In this post I will discuss how to read the notes and how to create the notes programmatically. When you create a note where the data is saved in the Navision ? I have seen this question being asked several times in the community forum. The answer is the notes are saved in binary format in a blob field (Note) in the **Record Link**</font> table (2000000068) and the way it maps to the record is using Record ID.</p>

Read Notes:

To read notes you need to find the “Record ID” of the record using Record Reference and then use that to filter the Record Link table and then convert value in the blob field (Note) into readable text.

In the below example the ReadNotes function takes SalesHeader as parameters and displays the first note associated with it.

Write Notes:

To create note once we again need to get the “**Record ID**” of the record which can be retrieved using Record Reference, and we also need to convert the text into bytes to store in the “Note” Blob Field. Since the Record Link primary key Link ID is set to Auto Increment we don’t need to find the next available “Link ID”, as INSERT statement will take care of retrieving it and assigning it.

There are two helper functions below SetText and HtmlEncode, you need these functions to write notes.

 
PROCEDURE ReadNotes@1240060000(SalesHeader@1240060003 : Record 36); 
    VAR 
      RecordLink@1240060000 : Record 2000000068; 
      NoteText@1240060001 : BigText; 
      Stream@1240060002 : InStream; 
      RecRef@1240060004 : RecordRef; 
    BEGIN 
      RecRef.GETTABLE(SalesHeader); 
      RecordLink.SETRANGE("Record ID",RecRef.RECORDID); 
      IF RecordLink.FINDFIRST THEN BEGIN 
        REPEAT 
          RecordLink.CALCFIELDS(Note); 
          IF RecordLink.Note.HASVALUE THEN BEGIN 
            CLEAR(NoteText); 
            RecordLink.Note.CREATEINSTREAM(Stream); 
            NoteText.READ(Stream); 
            NoteText.GETSUBTEXT(NoteText, 2); 
            MESSAGE(FORMAT(NoteText)); 
          END; 
       UNTIL RecordLink.NEXT = 0; 
      END; 
    END; 

    PROCEDURE WriteNote@1240060001(); 
    VAR 
      LinkID@1240060000 : Integer; 
      Customer@1240060001 : Record 18; 
      RecRef@1240060002 : RecordRef; 
      RecordLink@1240060003 : Record 2000000068; 
    BEGIN 
      Customer.GET('10000'); 
      RecRef.GETTABLE(Customer); 
      RecordLink.INIT; 
      RecordLink."Link ID" := 0; 
      RecordLink."Record ID" := RecRef.RECORDID; 
      RecordLink.URL1 := GETURL(CLIENTTYPE::Current, COMPANYNAME, 
OBJECTTYPE::Page, PAGE::"Customer Card"); 
      RecordLink.Type := RecordLink.Type::Note; 
      RecordLink.Created := CURRENTDATETIME; 
      RecordLink."User ID":=USERID; 
      RecordLink.Company:=COMPANYNAME; 
      RecordLink.Notify := TRUE; 
      SetText('Test Note For the Customer 10000',RecordLink); 
      RecordLink.INSERT; 
    END; 

    LOCAL PROCEDURE SetText@4(NoteText@1001 : Text;VAR RecordLink@1000 : 
Record 2000000068); 
    VAR 
      SystemUTF8Encoder@1011 : DotNet "'mscorlib, Version=2.0.0.0, 
Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089'.System.Text.UTF8Encoding"; 
      SystemByteArray@1010 : DotNet "'mscorlib, Version=2.0.0.0, 
Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089'.System.Array"; 
      OStr@1008 : OutStream; 
      s@1007 : Text; 
      lf@1006 : Text; 
      c1@1005 : Char; 
      c2@1004 : Char; 
      x@1003 : Integer; 
      y@1002 : Integer; 
      i@1009 : Integer; 
    BEGIN 
      s := NoteText; 
      SystemUTF8Encoder := SystemUTF8Encoder.UTF8Encoding; 
      SystemByteArray := SystemUTF8Encoder.GetBytes(s); 

      RecordLink.Note.CREATEOUTSTREAM(OStr); 
      x := SystemByteArray.Length DIV 128; 
      IF x > 1 THEN 
        y := SystemByteArray.Length - 128 * (x - 1) 
      ELSE 
        y := SystemByteArray.Length; 
      c1 := y; 
      OStr.WRITE(c1); 
      IF x > 0 THEN BEGIN 
        c2 := x; 
        OStr.WRITE(c2); 
      END; 
      FOR i := 0 TO SystemByteArray.Length - 1 DO BEGIN 
        c1 := SystemByteArray.GetValue(i); 
        OStr.WRITE(c1); 
      END; 
    END; 

    LOCAL PROCEDURE HtmlEncode@20(InText@1000 : Text[1024]) : Text[1024]; 
    VAR 
      SystemWebHttpUtility@1001 : DotNet "'System.Web, Version=2.0.0.0, 
Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a'.System.Web.HttpUtility"; 
    BEGIN 
      SystemWebHttpUtility := SystemWebHttpUtility.HttpUtility; 
      EXIT(SystemWebHttpUtility.HtmlEncode(InText)); 
    END; 

The two above functions SetText and HtmlEncode are copied from the standard Navision Codeunit (454 Job Queue - Send Notification)

Download the object from this link [Notes Management](http://1drv.ms/1OGITNh)

Please leave your comments, feedback or any suggestions you have for me to improve my blog and also if you have any questions, feel free to post.