Creating a form with WebDB - how should I start ?

Question

Hi,
Since I am a beginner in this area and nobody can help me at the office (but deadline is very close:) I hope somebody can help me at this forum..
So my problem is the followng:
I have a table 'Entity' with columns:
- ID// Name// Version// PreVersion and so on...
There is already implemented a form for Defining new entity. That form introduces Version = '1.1-0' (by default) and PreVersion = 'N/A' (by default), and of course Name and others are introduced by end user.
Now I have to implement a form for creating a new version from a specific Name and from an existing version (of course at the beginning there will exist only versions 1.1-0)
So I don't have idea at the moment which kind of form should I start with: forms on stored procedures or forms on tables/views or other type ?
The form should work in the following way:
when user executes it, he/she must give the Name and Version (from which new version must be created) and then a new row must be inserted with values copied from previous row (or if it's easier with NULL values); BUT Version of the new row must be a value entered by end user and PreVersion of new row must be the value of Version of the modified (previous) row.
For me it's difficult to imagine how can I solve a kind of parametrization in the form. I mean let say I have two columns in the form definition: Ent_name and Version where user gives the searching criteria i.e. Version and Name value of the row which must be modified, but how can I refference them in a SQL code let say added for example in 'Advanced PL/SQL Code' menu of form definition ?
I would appreciate any good idea just to give me a kick in what way sould I start ...
Br.
Szilard

Answer 1

Hi,
You can reference the columns in the additional plsql code using session variables. All the columns are referred with 'A_' prefixed to the name of the column. You can make use of p_session.get_value_as_<datatype> to get values and p_session.set_value to assign values to these columns.
Here is an example
declare
flightno number;
ticketno varchar2(30);
tdate date;
persons number;
blk varchar2(10) := 'DEFAULT';
begin
flightno := p_session.get_value_as_varchar2(
p_block_name => blk,
p_attribute_name => 'A_FLIGHT_NO');
ticketno := p_session.get_value_as_varchar2(
p_block_name => blk,
p_attribute_name => 'A_TICKET_NO');
tdate := p_session.get_value_as_date(
p_block_name => blk,
p_attribute_name => 'A_TRAVEL_DATE');
persons := p_session.get_value_as_number(
p_block_name => blk,
p_attribute_name => 'A_NOF_PERSONS');
p_session.set_value(
p_block_name => blk,
p_attribute_name => 'A_FLIGHTNO',
p_value => to_char(NULL)
p_session.set_value(
p_block_name => blk,
p_attribute_name => 'A_TICKETNO',
p_value => to_char(NULL)
p_session.set_value(
p_block_name => blk,
p_attribute_name => 'A_TRAVEL_DATE',
p_value => to_char(NULL)
Hope this helps.
Thanks,
Sharmila