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Last updated 15th
April 2003
Every effort has been
made to ensure that these files are virus free but there can be no guarantee.
Always do a virus check!
Papers From The Oracle Development
Tools User Group Spring Conference
Palm Springs - June 1998
Methods For Integrating Oracle Forms With Online Help
Co-Authored with Janice Carlson
This paper provides an introduction to Help authoring tools and
describes
methods for integrating MS online Help with Oracle Forms.
This paper is not intended to be the definitive reference
of how PL/SQL should be written, nor is it intended
as an instruction manual. There are many who will disagree with much
of what is presented here.
It is, rather, intended as a discussion document from which others
can learn and develop their own methodology.
Towards Object Orientation using Stored Functions and Procedures
This paper won the Editor's Choice Awardfor
Technical Content and Presentation in Printed Format at the Oracle Development
Tools User Group (ODTUG) Conference
in St. Louis MO. 5 November 1997
This function converts a number into its "spelt out" equivalent.
E.G. In_Words(9999) returns Nine Thousand Nine Hundred and Ninety-nine.
It is valid for the range of numbers between -999,999,999,999 and +999,999,999,999.
NOTE: This function will NOT work in Oracle RDBMS releases earlier than
8.0.
This download contains all you need to implement an Oracle Forms
Calendar either as a standalone form or as a modal window within a form
(recommended) . Included is calendar.fmb, a demonstration form (Forms 4.5)
and calendar.doc, a description in Word 6 format. An enhanced version (calendar2.fmb)
was added on 15 September 2001. This version requires Forms 6.0 or higher.
Oracle PL/SQL®
Utilities (Forms Library - .pll and Text Version - .txt)
This collection of utilities is intended to make life easier for
PL/SQL developers. While intended primarily for Forms developers these
utilities have many other uses.
For example : Char_To_Date(my_string VARCHAR2) converts a character string to
a date without the developer needing to know the format. Data_Type(my_string VARCHAR2) determines whether a character string
can be converted to a date or a number and returns the date or number format.
In_Quotes(my_string VARCHAR2) returns my_string in quotes. Never
have to worry about how many quotes and where surround the block.item in
'customer like '''||:order.customer||'''' ; again. It simply becomes
'customer like '||In_Quotes(:order.customer);
Functional Magic (Tips and Tricks with Oracle7® Stored Functions)
This describes using stored functions, both standalone and embedded
in SQL to improve the performance and extend the query capabilities of
Oracle Forms®.
First presented as a paper at the OCSIG (now ODTUG) Spring '96 conference
it was published in the August 1996 edition of Oracle Informant Magazine.
Among other things it describes how to order by a non-basetable item
in Forms and how to join in a CONNECT BY.
Functional Magic II (Dynamically Enforcing Foreign Key Delete Constraints on the Client)
The introduction of enforced database level constraints in version
7 of the Oracle database raised the possibility of not having to concern
ourselves with enforcing relational integrity in our application code.
However, we have to consider if relying solely on these constraints is
really desirable. A good user interface should normally be expected to
warn the user as soon as possible if a validation is going to fail, not
wait until commit time. (See Bradley D. Brown’s discussion of this topic
in "It’s No Game" Oracle Informant, May 1996).
This article describes how a view and stored functions and procedures
can be used to reduce the maintenance effort required as new constraints
are added to zero.
First presented as a paper at the OCSIG (now ODTUG) Spring '96 conference
it was published in the February edition of Oracle Informant Magazine.
See note below regarding the view ALL_FK_CONSTRAINTS
and Oracle8.
Views - All_Fk_Constraints And All_Fk_Constraints_2
N.B. Until 20th January 2000
the SQL to create these views contained an error.
If you downloaded these files prior to that
date please download the corrected versions.
These views augment the Oracle views of the data dictionary tables.
Originally created to support enforcing foreign key constraints on the
client (see above) it is a useful tool in its own right. The first
version displays only the owner number of the tables for performance reasons.
The second version translates these to the owner (schema) names and has
been added after numerous request.
These views have been tested in Oracle 7.x and (modified as below)
in Oracle 8.0.5.
Note: For Oracle 8 there is one small
change. The column TYPE in table CDEF$ has been re-named TYPE#. Therefore,
in both cases the last line of the WHERE clause must be changed from
AND
i2.type = 4 to AND i2.type#
= 4.
The views need to be created by user SYSTEM and have select granted
to public, as per the Oracle provided views.
ALL_FK_CONSTRAINTS
ALL_FK_CONSTRAINTS_2 CONSTRAINT_NAME NOT
NULL VARCHAR2(30) CONSTRAINT_NAME
NOT NULL VARCHAR2(30) PARENT_TABLE_OWNER NOT NULL NUMBER
PARENT_TABLE_OWNER NOT NULL VARCHAR2(30) PARENT_TABLE
NOT NULL VARCHAR2(30) PARENT_TABLE
NOT NULL VARCHAR2(30) PARENT_COLUMN
NOT NULL VARCHAR2(30) PARENT_COLUMN
NOT NULL VARCHAR2(30) CHILD_TABLE_OWNER NOT NULL NUMBER
CHILD_TABLE_OWNER NOT NULL VARCHAR2(30) CHILD_TABLE
NOT NULL VARCHAR2(30) CHILD_TABLE
NOT NULL VARCHAR2(30) CHILD_COLUMN
NOT NULL VARCHAR2(30) CHILD_COLUMN
NOT NULL VARCHAR2(30) CASCADE_DELETE
VARCHAR2(3) CASCADE_DELETE
VARCHAR2(3) CHILD_TABLE_ID
NOT NULL NUMBER CHILD_TABLE_ID
NOT NULL NUMBER CHILD_COLUMN_ID NOT
NULL NUMBERCHILD_COLUMN_ID NOT NULL
NUMBER
Detailed Table Definition Report for Designer 2000
This report sets out in detail everything you could want to know
about your table definitions in the Designer 2000 Repository. Authored
by two of my colleagues, Alan Stolleis and Tom Wiebe.
All You Need to Implement Bubble (Balloon) Help in
Forms 4.5 and 5.0*
The forms library (.pll) and two DLL's here are all you need to implement
bubble (balloon) help in Forms 4.5 16 or 32 bit and Forms 5.0. Tested on
Windows 3.x, NT 3.51, NT 4.0 and Windows 95. The original code and DLL's
are from Oracle Corporation's support group. The library has been enhanced
to work either 16 or 32 bit environments without modification.
*This implementation has been tested in
Forms 5.0, however you might want to consider using the (new in 5.0) tool
tips item property in its place to avoid depending on a dll and a foreign
function interface.
and/or
e-mail
me with your comments
