APEX page date item process error

Question

hi,
could anyone help me?
In form i have lots of date fields and each date field inputting as below:
dd/mm/yyyy in one item and then second item storing time as hh24:mm i.e 10/10/2010 14:10
xyz = 10 max length and xyz_hh = 5 max length
so in process following code work fine when inserting and updating but only field has entered by user but if left blank then getting error such as character value entering expected numeric value somthing like that:
xyz = to_date(:p8_xyz||' '||substr(:p8_xyz_HH,1,2)||':'||substr(:p8_xyz_HH,4,2),'DD/MM/YYYY HH24:MI')
i was thinking to use IF condition for each item to check if any field blank then replace null else whatever value entered?
any suggesatiion?
krgds

Answer 1

First question: are nulls acceptable? If they aren't, you can use Item Validations to warn the user they can't leave an item NULL. Here is an example of an item validation I use to check for a valid date:
DECLARE
  str_day      VARCHAR2(10);
  dt_indx      DATE;
  dt_test      DATE;
BEGIN
  str_day    := :P1050_DATE_MM || '/' || :P1050_DATE_DD || '/' ||  :P1050_DATE_YYYY;
  SELECT TO_DATE(str_day, 'MM/DD/YYYY') INTO dt_test FROM DUAL;
  IF dt_test <= sysdate AND dt_test >= sysdate - 270 THEN
    RETURN TRUE;
  ELSE
    RETURN FALSE;
  END IF;
EXCEPTION
  WHEN OTHERS THEN return FALSE;
END;If nulls are acceptable, you're probably better off using a custom page processing handler where you can check for NULL as you go to insert the value into the table. Something like:
declare
  str_dy   VARCHAR2(10)   := :p8_xyz;
  str_hr   VARCHAR2(5)    := :p8_xyz_HH;
  str_dt   VARCHAR2(20);
  v_dt    DATE;
begin
  IF str_dy IS NOT NULL and str_hr IS NOT NULL then
    str_dt   := xyz = to_date(:p8_xyz||' '||substr(:p8_xyz_HH,1,2)||':'||substr(:p8_xyz_HH,4,2),'DD/MM/YYYY HH24:MI');
  ELSE
    str_dt := NULL;
  END IF;
--Rest of code goes here
end;