Webutil usage on Windows and Unix clients - Host and Temp dir issues

Question

Hello,
I am in the process of writing a Forms application which makes use of WebUtil to handle the uploading and downloading of files, as well as launching the files on the client PCs. The code below is my current 'Launch' program which works great in a Microsoft Windows environment. It gets the TEMP directory location, builds a file name, downloads the file to the TEMP directory and uses the Host command to launch the file.
PROCEDURE Launch_DB IS
l_directory varchar2(200) := client_win_api_environment.get_temp_directory(true);
l_success boolean;
BEGIN
:file_block.full_file_name := l_directory || '\' || :file_block.file_name;
l_success := webutil_file_transfer.DB_To_Client_with_progress
(clientFile => :file_block.full_file_name
,tableName => 'FILES
,columnName => 'FILE_DATA'
,whereClause => 'ID = ' || :file_block.id
,progressTitle => 'Download from Database in progress'
,progressSubTitle=> 'Please wait'
if l_success then
WEBUTIL_HOST.NONBLOCKING('CMD /C "' || :file_block.full_file_name || '"');
else
exception
     when others then
     message('File download failed: '||sqlerrm);
END;
My problem is that I've just discovered that there's a new group of users that will want access to these forms, and they're using non-windows machines - mostly Solaris and Linux. As such, I have these problems:
- " client_win_api_environment.get_temp_directory " is a Microsoft Windows specific function. Is there any way to determine a temporary storage area on a Unix machine?
- " WEBUTIL_HOST.NONBLOCKING('CMD /C "' || :file_block.full_file_name || '"'); " - CMD is Microsoft Windows specific function. What should I do to launch a file from Unix? (Sorry, my Unix skills are pretty minimal).
- I'm guessing that I'll need to determine the operating system so that I can use different methods to determine the TEMP dir, and to execute the HOST command. Assuming that Microsoft Windows and Unix variants are the only OS's that I need to provide access to, what is the best way to determine the client environment ( eg. IF UPPER(WebUtil_ClientInfo.Get_Operating_System) like '%WINDOWS%' THEN ... ELSE ... END IF; ) . I only have access to Windows XP for testing so I don't know what values "WebUtil_ClientInfo.Get_Operating_System" will return for any other OS.
Thanks in advance for any assistance.
Regards,
Michael.

Answer 1

Hi,
as far as launching the file goes, if teh program that runs the file exist on teh local computer, you can use teh host command in webutil to access teh program and file. CMD is what you use to open teh command line on windows, but the host command is supposed to work on the UNIX client as well.
For the temp directory, you have two options
The short term option: Pass the temporary directory name as a user variable to Forms when starting the application. This can be user specific if adding this information to the URL using teh otherparams parameter
The longterm option: Log a TAR with Oracle customer support to add a function to teh getClientInfo function that retruns the temporary directory for the authenticated user.
Frank