Date Picker Doesn't Like Retrieved or Typed In Date Values

Question

I have more than one Region on a page, so I retrieve the column values for a region this way:
(On LOad, Before Header, Once per Page Visit)
BEGIN
EXECUTE IMMEDIATE 'ALTER SESSION SET NLS_DATE_FORMAT='''||:pick_date_format_mask||'''';
FOR request_rec IN (SELECT dev_requested_ind,
dev_requested_dttm,
dev_analyst_seq,
dev_completed_ind,
dev_completed_dttm,
dev_dba_seq,
sit_requested_ind,
sit_requested_dttm,
sit_analyst_seq,
sit_completed_ind,
sit_completed_dttm,
sit_dba_seq,
uat_requested_ind,
uat_requested_dttm,
uat_analyst_seq,
uat_completed_ind,
uat_completed_dttm,
uat_dba_seq,
prd_requested_ind,
prd_requested_dttm,
prd_analyst_seq,
prd_completed_ind,
prd_completed_dttm
FROM request_tbl
WHERE request_seq = :p16_request_seq)
LOOP
:p16_dev_requested_ind := request_rec.dev_requested_ind;
:p16_dev_requested_dttm := request_rec.dev_requested_dttm;
:p16_dev_analyst_seq := request_rec.dev_analyst_seq;
:p16_dev_completed_ind := request_rec.dev_completed_ind;
:p16_dev_completed_dttm := request_rec.dev_completed_dttm;
:p16_dev_dba_seq := request_rec.dev_dba_seq;
:p16_sit_requested_ind := request_rec.sit_requested_ind;
:p16_sit_requested_dttm := request_rec.sit_requested_dttm;
:p16_sit_analyst_seq := request_rec.sit_analyst_seq;
:p16_sit_completed_ind := request_rec.sit_completed_ind;
:p16_sit_completed_dttm := request_rec.sit_completed_dttm;
:p16_sit_dba_seq := request_rec.sit_dba_seq;
:p16_uat_requested_ind := request_rec.uat_requested_ind;
:p16_uat_requested_dttm := request_rec.uat_requested_dttm;
:p16_uat_analyst_seq := request_rec.uat_analyst_seq;
:p16_uat_completed_ind := request_rec.uat_completed_ind;
:p16_uat_completed_dttm := request_rec.uat_completed_dttm;
:p16_uat_dba_seq := request_rec.uat_dba_seq;
:p16_prd_requested_ind := request_rec.prd_requested_ind;
:p16_prd_requested_dttm := request_rec.prd_requested_dttm;
:p16_prd_analyst_seq := request_rec.prd_analyst_seq;
:p16_prd_completed_ind := request_rec.prd_completed_ind;
:p16_prd_completed_dttm := request_rec.prd_completed_dttm;
END LOOP;
END;
p16_dev_requested_dttm is defined as a Date Picker (use application format mask)
The data source is a Date column called dev_requested_dttm. I haven't defined a format mask for it. (I have tried using &PICK_DATE_FORMAT_MASK..)
The Application Format Mask is defined as a Subsitution String called
PICK_DATE_FORMAT_MASK
with a value of
MM/DD/YYYY HH:MI AM
The retrieved column value for p16_dev_requested_dttm looks fine, but when I click the date picker pushbutton, I get this message:
Not Found
The requested URL /pls/htmldb/wwv_flow_utilities.show_as_popup_calendar was not found on this server.
Oracle-Application-Server-10g/10.1.2.0.0 Oracle-HTTP-Server Server at edwdev.dhhs.state.nh.us Port 7779
I also get a line in my log file,
/vg02lvol1/app/oracle/product/htmldb/Apache/Apache/logs/error_log.1133956800:
[Wed Dec  7 16:23:43 2005] [error] [client 172.16.252.76] [ecid: 1133990623:172.17.96.35:1802:0:9870,0] mod_plsql: /pls/htmldb/wwv_flow_util
ities.show_as_popup_calendar HTTP-404 ORA-01849: hour must be between 1 and 12\nORA-06512: at "FLOWS_020000.WWV_FLOW_UTILITIES", line 1801\n
ORA-06512: at line 22\n
This happens with both FireFox and Internet Explorer.
Any ideas what's causing this?
-F
Message was edited by:
Fred C Willingham

Answer 1

Fred,
Unfortunately, the answer is no to both of your questions.
There is no way for you as a developer to control which date is highlighted in the popup calendar. It will always highlight the current day (if you're displaying a month that contains the current day). This is an interesting and prudent suggestion, and one which we'll consider for an upcoming release of HTML DB.
With regards to your second point, that also is something we should consider for an upcoming release of HTML DB. This isn't impossible for us to do, it was just designed to work in the current fashion. If you look at the generated HTML for the Date Picker item on the page (not the popup calendar itself, but the page on which the item is rendered), we break out each element of the date value into discrete components. When we instead rely upon the user entered value, garbage or date values not conforming to the date format mask are easily entered. And the question is - what to do then? Raise an error immediately, still popup the calendar and show the current month, etc. So we've tried to be fairly strict about the date values and format masks for the popup calendar, hence the implementation you see.
Thanks again for your comments.
Joel