Forms standard coding technique

Question

Hi:
Thinking in terms of efficiency I need to check for the existence of a value in a database table E.g. in a W-V-I trig
CURSOR c1
IS
SELECT 'X'
FROM TAB_A
WHERE COL_A = :blockA.itema;
IF ( c1%NOTFOUND THEN )
show_alert('Does not exist...blah blah blah....');
CLOSE c1;
RAISE Form_Trig.....;
END IF;
Now in a Post_query trigger I would usually place a function in a Package to return a description for say Cust_Id.
But is it worth creating a BOOLEAN (packaged) function just to check for the existence of a row like in the example above ?
I am of the opinion that no client side explicit cursors should exist in forms modules no matter how simple they are. Does anyone agree ?
Let us know your comments.
Pradeep.

Answer 1

By the way are you a forms developer for Oracle Corp?Nope. Just a government (university) employee.
I like to use a Form Level W-V-I .. depending on trig
block then fire a seperate unit for validating items
in that block e.g.Yes, I sometimes put all of a block's WVI triggers into one at the block level. Don't know, though... it gets ugly sometimes. I usually create separate procedures within the enclosing Declare-Begin, and name them Edit_Name, Edit_Street, Edit_Phone, etc, and then call them from a main processing block in the trigger.
Declare
v_it VARCHAR2(50) := :SYSTEM.TRIGGER_ITEM;Sometimes, I add this:
Val varchar2(100) := Name_in(:System.Trigger_Item);
Then I can check
If VAl is null then...
---- Second message:
Just to go ‘deeper’.
What about when an implicit cursor checks for
TOO_MANY_ROWS ?
So firstly the implicit cursor checks for row
existence and then checks again for
uniqueness(TOO_MANY_ROWS). Where as an Explicit
cursor will only check for existence once. Is an
Explicit cursor still inferior considering this ?I saw a discussion a year or two back that Oracle had tightened that up a bit, so that they can do it all in one round trip -- or something to that effect. Anyway, if you create yourself a benchmark test both ways, I believe you would find that the implicit cursor will process faster than Open-fetch-close.