Did You Know? -- March 2002

By Hervé Deschamps, Oracle Corporation.

Designer 6i

Designer 6i has changed its algorithm for attaching libraries to forms. It used to attach the library identified in the MODLIB preference before it attached libraries in the form's module network. Now, it attaches the MODLIB library AFTER all other libraries.

Designer 6i Form Generator has changed how it handles views. Forms based on views can now retrieve server generated values from the database without any extra coding. In order to support this, Form Generator now requires that if a view usage is updateable, the associated view must have a primary key defined in Designer. To avoid this problem, add a primary key to all your views.

The algorithm for calculating button width appears to have changed from the previous release of Designer. If the button width is set in the Repository, the
generated width is wider than it was when generated with Designer 6.0. If the button width in the Repository is null, Designer is taking the width from the button object in the object library and adding .2" to it.

Designer has changed its algorithm for handling a form in which the module component and/or window height and width are set to null. It used to determine the size automatically to be just big enough to display the data. Now, it creates forms that are much too large. However, if you fill in the height and width, Designer will now expand the canvas and wondow as needed to display data. So, it is better now to fill them in.

How to prevent Designer from attaching libraries with their full path?

  1. Go to dialog window 'Generate Form'
  2. Choose Options
  3. Choose Dependencies tab page
  4. Empty 'Pll file Path' field
In this case only the name of the pll file will be inserted into "PLL Library" property in Forms by Forms generator. Forms will search for PLL on default order
(First in working directory then in directories in FORMS60_PATH the in <ORACLE_HOME>/BIN). However I do not know a way to stop the generators from adding the .PLL after the library name.
 

SQL

How to look for the character '_' in a column? Or the character¨'%'? You need to escape them like this:

select   product_desc
from     app_products
where    product_code like '%\_%' escape '\'

The backslash is the escape character that we chose. The escape character can be used to cause Oracle to interpret % or _ literally, rather than as a special character.
 
 

Oracle Installer - Pentium 4

The Oracle installer is a java based application and by default invokes the java runtime with the JIT (just in time compiler) enabled. When installing to a Pentium 4 machine the JIT module which resides in "symcjit.dll" does not handle the processor id correctly and crashes. To workaround this problem simply disable the JIT compiler option in the Oracle installation parameter file "ORAPARAM.INI" by adding the "-nojit" option as follows:
JRE_MEMORY_OPTIONS=-nojit -mx48m
 


Hervé Deschamps is a Technical Manager with Oracle Corporation. Over the years he has developed a number of applications using Oracle Development Tools and others.  He has an extensive experience of all phases of the development life cycle. He is also known in the technical community for his article publications centered around best custom development practices and for his user group presentations. You can reach him by e-mail at herve.deschamps@.oracle.com. He also maintains a web site full of articles, scripts, tips and techniques at http://www.iherve.com.