Did You Know? -- October 2002

By Hervé Deschamps, Oracle Corporation.

Tech Apps

When you modify a library and recompile it (.plx), but your forms that you have already open as applets will not take into account the modifications, try closing the application and opening it again.

If you need to debug the standard Export apps functionality, put the following instruction in your form trigger EXPORT before calling appp_standard.event('EXPORT');
:GLOBAL.FND_EXPORT_DEBUG := 'TRUE';

To check the current values of NLS_LANG and NLS_DATE_FORMAT in apps, just do
Help->Examine--Environment: NLS_LANG or NLS_DATE_FORMAT.

Unix:

To change the OS prompt:
PS1='>Hi ' (ksh)
prompt='coucou!' (sh)

To look for a character string within a file:
grep lookigForThis myFile.log

Forms: Input date format mask:

The Input date format mask (actually a set of masks) is used to extract a value from an item which has no format mask. That is, the mask is used to convert a user-entered string into a native-format date value.

The system administrator or end user may set the environment variables FORMS60_USER_DATE_FORMAT and FORMS60_USER_DATETIME_FORMAT to specify the format masks used to extract values from items of type DATE and DATETIME, respectively. In each case, multiple format masks may be specified, separated by vertical bars. When converting a user-entered string, the format masks are used in the order specified, until a conversion succeeds or until the format
masks are exhausted.

Forms: Ora_Nls.Get_Lang_Str (Ora_Nls.Language)

This took me a while to figure out. Where does Ora_Nls.Get_Lang_Str get its format from? In other words, how do I get it to return a different date format without changing the language? This info can be found nowhere in the documentation.

Just do a
set_application_property(PLSQL_DATE_FORMAT, 'DD/MM/RRRR');

9iAS:

Re-creating services for Oracle Forms and Reports is fairly easy:
Forms:
   ifsrv60 -install <servicename> port=<portnumber>
   ex: ifsrv60 -install OracleFormsServerTest port=9007
Report
   rwmts60 -install Rep60_xxxxx tcpip
   where xx can be found in [home_reports_server]\reports60\server\
   It forms part of the name of the .log file.
   It can also be found in the TNSNAMES file.

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.