User input for group updates

Question

I'm new to Oracle development.
I've done some work with pl/sql, sql*Plus,
and ORacle forms.
I'd like to allow the user to do a query
in forms, then give them the option of
modifying all rows returned by the query
with a column value they can specify.
I know how to do a forms query, know how
to prompt for variables they can input,
but how do I then take that information and
update the rows? Don't know what "handle" to
use to refer to the rows returned.
My other thought, would be to write the whole
thing in pl/sql. But pl/sql won't allow me to
use the prompt/accept commands. (Why?)
I wanted to create a nice loop that would allow
the user to make repetitive changes on groups
of data. I know I need to use a cursor. But
don't know how to get the prompt/accept part.
Thanks for any help --
- Maeve
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Answer 1

You are simply assuming that the user will enter something that can be interpreted as a double. If you're going to do different things based on some characteristics of the user's input, then you are going to have to check those characteristics yourself (via code that you write). In particular if you want to distinguish between int and double, you're going to have to write code to decide which of those two categories the user's input falls into.