Tabular form with select list not updating

Question

I have created a tabular form with a dynamic select list
select primary_key, column1,
htmldb_item.select_list_from_query(10,column2, 'select descr d, column_value r from lookup_table where column_value = '||column1) column2
from main_table
The select list appears to work correctly but the new value is not saved to the database. I assume this is because the tabular form element display as field for column2 is set to "standard report column" but when I select any of the "display as text" or "LOV" options either the current data is not displayed or errors are generated.
Any suggestions?
Thanks,
Bob

Answer 1

Hi Ian,
As you have seen, sorting on the project_manager_id column will sort by the id value rather than the textual value. This is, of course, because this is the value in the field.
I haven't tried this out, but one thing that may work is the fact that you don't have to include the ORDER BY fields within the SELECT statement. You could, for example, do:
select p.project_number, p.project_manager_id
from projects p, users u
where p.project_manager_id = u.id (+)
order by u.name
Obviously, you won't be able to do this in the existing statement as you would then be blocked from using column sorting. However, it implies that if you could construct the SQL statement dynamically, appending appropriate ORDER BY strings to the end of the base select statement, you could sort by anything you like. This does, of course, mean that you would have to create a mechanism to allow the user to select the sort order, generate the appropriate string and reconstruct the entire sql statement.
I had had a similar request quite a while ago. The underlying reason for that request turned out to be that the user just wanted to quickly locate records relating to one person. In the end, we agreed that a search filter was the best thing to do.
Regards
Andy