ViewCriteria using CATSEARCH or CONTAINS possible

Question

Hi,
a couple of our old apps (Struts and old JBO tags, BC4J and Oracle 11g DB) are using Oracle Text indexes (catsearch or contains) for data retrieval. The queries are build dynamically from a number of input fields send to a method in the VO.
We are planing to migrate them to 11g (ADF rich faces and the full ADF stack). I would like to use ViewCriteria in the VOs to handle the build of the queries, but couldn't find a way to use catsearch or contains syntax in ViewCriteria.
Does anybody out here know a way to tweak the framework to build a query like
select employee_id, last_name, fist_name from employees where catsearch(last_name, :bindName, null)>0;
with ViewCriteria?
I'll appreciate any pointer...
Timo
Using Jdev 11.1.1.4.0, Oracle 11g DB, full ADF stack
Edited by: Timo Hahn on 25.03.2011 09:58
bump

Answer 1

OK, after toying with this feature over the weekend, I've come to the conclusion that this will not work. At least not in the current version 11.1.1.4.0.
The principle layout of the view criteria is <attribute><operand><expression>As the link Frank (and Steve) mentioned you can build your own custom operants, but with certain limitations like e.g. named bind variables are not handled by the framework. This is the show stopper for me right now because I like to build an operand like catsearch(<attribute>, <expression>, null)>0 where the <expression> does contain a named bind variable.
When you code the custom operator to return this the bind variable is not bound by the framework resulting in (java.sql.SQLException) Fehlender IN- oder OUT-Parameter at Index:: 1 exception. Even the phrasing of the custom operand needs some tweaking to get you a correct SQL statemant:         <CompOper
          Name="LastName"
          ToDo="1"
          OperDescStrCode="Name_custOp_catsearch"
          Oper="catsearch"
          MinCardinality="0"
          MaxCardinality="0">
          <TransientExpression><![CDATA[
return "is not null AND catsearch(LAST_NAME, :bindName, null)>0"
                        ]]></TransientExpression>
        </CompOper> As you see you need to put a 'is not null and ...' inside the transient expression to get it work, otherwise the resulting SQL will not be valid.
So it looks like I'm in a dead end :-(
@Frank and @Steve: do you know if there is a ER pending for something like this?
CATSEARCH and CONTAINS are not widely used here (just guessing from the # of hits you get if you search the forum), so does it make sense to file one myself?
Timo