Checkbox in report

Question

I am trying to duplicate (somewhat) some an idea presented by Denes
http://htmldb.oracle.com/pls/otn/f?p=31517:123
in his excellent example, but I cannot seem to get a handle on his update process is doing:
See some of my confusing comments inline:
-------------code starts
DECLARE
vrownumber BINARY_INTEGER;
vfound BOOLEAN;
BEGIN
-- update new checkboxes
FOR ii IN 1 .. HTMLDB_APPLICATION.g_f07.COUNT -- your checkbox
LOOP
vrownumber := HTMLDB_APPLICATION.g_f07 (ii);
-- only if checkbox hasn't been checked before
IF NVL(HTMLDB_APPLICATION.g_f06 (vrownumber), '0') <> 'Y'
THEN
UPDATE emp_garbage
SET check_char = 'Y'
WHERE empno = HTMLDB_APPLICATION.g_f01 (vrownumber);
END IF;
END LOOP;
-- remove old checkboxes
FOR ii IN 1 .. HTMLDB_APPLICATION.g_f06.COUNT --why is this used?
LOOP --
-- only if the checkbox was already set
IF HTMLDB_APPLICATION.g_f06 (ii) IS NOT NULL
THEN
vfound := FALSE;
FOR jj IN 1 .. HTMLDB_APPLICATION.g_f07.COUNT -- your checkbox
LOOP
-- is the checkbox still checked?
IF HTMLDB_APPLICATION.g_f07 (jj) = ii
THEN
vfound := TRUE;
EXIT;
END IF;
END LOOP;
IF NOT vfound
THEN
UPDATE emp_garbage
SET check_char = 'N'
WHERE empno = HTMLDB_APPLICATION.g_f01 (ii);
END IF;
END IF;
END LOOP;
-- do the rest of the update
FOR i IN 1 .. HTMLDB_APPLICATION.g_f01.COUNT
LOOP
--are these references to column numbers? 
--if so, does it matter if they are hidden or not?
UPDATE emp_garbage
SET ename = HTMLDB_APPLICATION.g_f02 (i),
job = HTMLDB_APPLICATION.g_f03 (i),
sal = HTMLDB_APPLICATION.g_f04 (i),
comm = HTMLDB_APPLICATION.g_f05 (i)
WHERE empno = HTMLDB_APPLICATION.g_f01 (i);
END LOOP;
COMMIT;
END;
------------------code ends
More questions: Are the HTMLDB_APPLICATION.g_f?? values dependent on the query order or the order that is displayed in the report?
Denes is using a field check_char to hold the value, and I am using a field called approval. I also do not want fields (other than the 'approval' field to be updateable from the [updateable] report. Denes is using updateable fields in his example, and if I set a field to be a report field rather than editable, the app breaks. Why?
I have read the documentation on the checkbox function, but it does not help a lot; and I have not found other explanations in this forum.
thanks in advance!
Mike
P.S. Would it be possible to combine the click event in the checkbox to automatically post the change in the db? Presuming that this takes javascript, is this type of thing hard to do?

Answer 1

Mike,
irst I am wondering what version of Apex and Oracle
you are using as the example you are phising around
in was written for Apex 2.2 (HTML DB). 3.1
>
You should not have any issues but it is good
practice to recode the HTMLDB_APPLICATION to
Apex_APPLICATION.
agreed.
Specific to your questions: Are the
HTMLDB_APPLICATION.g_f?? values dependent on the
query order or the order that is displayed in the
report? I am not sure what you mean by order that is
displayed, but if you mean the position of the item
.g_f(#) then yes. This refers to the position in the
field, example your query has 6 outputs labeled
1 = .g_f01
2 = .g_f02
3 = .g_f03
4 = .g_f04
5 = .g_f05
6 = .g_f06
As to the next question, "I also do not want fields
(other than the 'approval' field to be updated from
the [updated] report. Denes is using updated fields
in his example, and if I set a field to be a report
field rather than editable, the app breaks. Why?" What I meant about the order is that you can change the display order in the report (select the report attributes tab from the report region and toggle the display order) and not change the order in the original query. Is it the query order or the display order that matters? As for the example report itself, I refer you to Denes' example. He has 10 fields total, and 6 are editable, two are hidden.
I would actually need to see how you have written this
portion of the query as for myself I would have the
querried and displayed normally and not address it as
.g_fXX.
I have not written it...
Here is the query from Denes application:
SELECT empno, empno empno_display, ename, job, sal, comm, check_char,
HTMLDB_ITEM.checkbox (7,
'#ROWNUM#',
NULL,
DECODE (check_char, 'Y', '#ROWNUM#')
) check_box, check_char checkbox_display
FROM emp_garbage
and ot your last question;
P.S. Would it be possible to combine the click event
in the checkbox to automatically post the change in
the db? Presuming that this takes javascript, is this
type of thing hard to do?
Yes is the simple answer, you have the option under
the edit region to allow an end user to update the
form as well as write into the code the option to
update the Database directly with something as simple
as a button.
Hope this helps,
Randy