Bug 182296 Crosstab - non-numeric measures
Feature request. Looking at the 2.2.M6 release, it seems that measures (the fields that can be in the matrix part of the output) need to be numeric. I looked at the spec documents and it seems there is no requirement for non-numeric measures
data/org.eclipse.birt.data/src/org/eclipse/birt/data/engine/olap/data/document/DocumentObjectUtil.java
public static Object[] readValue( IDocumentObject documentObject, int[] dataType ) throws IOException
	{
		Object[] result = new Object[dataType.length];
		for ( int i = 0; i < result.length; i++ )
		{
			result[i] = readValue( documentObject, dataType[i] );
		}
		return result;
	}
	/**
	 * 
	 * @param documentObject
	 * @param dataType
	 * @return
	 * @throws IOException
	 */
	public static Object readValue( IDocumentObject documentObject, int dataType ) throws IOException
	{
		byte nullSign = documentObject.readByte( );
		if( nullSign == 0 )
		{
			return null;
		}
		switch ( dataType )
		{
			case DataType.BOOLEAN_TYPE :
				return new Boolean( documentObject.readBoolean( ) );
			case DataType.INTEGER_TYPE :
				return new Integer( documentObject.readInt( ) );
			case DataType.DOUBLE_TYPE :