Oracle 8 and 8i Features in Forms Developer

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Techniques for Querying and Updating New Data Sources in Forms Based on Objects
• A New Look at Relations Using REFS
• Basing a Block on a Stored Procedure Involving Object Tables
• Record Groups and LOVs Based on Objects
• PL/SQL8 and 8i in Forms
• Summary

Programming with objects involves using object tables (entire tables based on a single object type), VARRAYS, nested tables, REF columns , and stored procedures returning one of these object values. Oracle Developer 6.0 onwards has introduced the capability of performing CRUD (Create, Retrieve, Update, Delete) operations on block data sources based on some of these object categories. Also it has the capability of using some features of PL/SQL 8 from Forms and of incorporating JavaBeans components into Forms applications. This chapter explores these capabilities in greater depth. The remainder of this chapter is organized as follows :

• Techniques for querying and updating new data sources in Forms based on objects that includes CRUD on object table-based data sources in Forms and CRUD on object type-based items in Forms
• A new look at relations using REFs
• Record groups based on objects
• PL/SQL8 and 8i capabilities in Forms, including limitations
• Limitations of Forms in handling objects, including the inability to handle VARRAYS and nested tables involving objects stored in the database