Formatting Character values

Question

Guru's,
I have a character (varchar2) field I need formatted 9999-99-999-999 (It's an NSN - National Stock Number). I want to use srw.set_format_mask, but that only works for date/number fields. I have the field formatted FMXXXX"-"XX"-"XXX"-"XXXX in forms, but what is the correct way to format it in Reports? Seems like such a simple task but I can't find an easy resolution.
Thanks in Advance
abc

Answer 1

i figured it out on my own - in format trigger
function F_nsnFormatTrigger return boolean is
tmp varchar2(16);
begin
     if :nsn <> 'N/A' then
     tmp := substr(:nsn,1,4)||'-'||substr(:nsn,5,2)||'-'||substr(:nsn,7,3)||'-'||substr(:nsn,10,4);
     srw.set_field_char(0,tmp);
     end if;
     return (TRUE);
end;