Webalchemy to convert HTML to PL/SQL

From: Foo Man Choo SE <foomanchoose_at_yahoo.com>
Date: 31 Aug 2001 11:41:58 -0700
Message-ID: <424fd2be.0108311041.7a2022b4@posting.google.com>

We have relatively involved HTML pages created using Dreamweaver. These pages contain a form with lots of tables within tables containing various Select lists and other form objects. We need to convert these into PL/SQL so that code could be added to generated dynamic content for the select lists, etc. Note that this is for Oracle 8.0.4 (OAS 4.0.8) on Solaris so the use of PL/SQL Server Pages
(PSP) or other 8i functionality is out of the question.

Well, we tried Webalchemy but it generates code containing several levels of nested function (i.e. htf.*) calls instead of separate htp.* calls. The following simplified example shows the result:

---

.
.
htp.tableRowOpen;
htp.tableData( htf.tableOpen( cattributes => ' width="100%"' ) ||

        htf.tableRowOpen ||
        htf.tableData( htf.tableOpen(  cattributes => '
cellspacing="6"' ) ||
        htf.tableRowOpen(  cattributes => ' bgcolor="#999999"' ) ||
        htf.tableData( htf.para ||
        htf.bold( '<FONT size="2">' ||
        'Enter search text to select User:' ||
        '</FONT>') ||
        htf.formText( cname => 'tUser', csize => '35', cmaxlength =>
'100', cattributes => ' onKeyUp="foo()"') ||
        htf.formSelectOpen( cname => 'lUser', nsize => '5') ||
        htf.formSelectOption( 'LIST LINE 1', cattributes => '
value="LL1"') ||
        htf.formSelectOption( 'LIST LINE 2', cattributes => '
value="LL2"') ||
        htf.formSelectOption( 'LIST LINE 3', cattributes => '
value="LL3"') ||
        htf.formSelectClose ||
        htf.tableClose);

htp.tableRowClose;
.
.

---

The problem with this is that it makes it a lot more difficult to insert PL/SQL code to, for example, generate the Select Option lines
(e.g. LIST LINE 1).

There appear to be four options:

(1) Convert the Webalchemy output to change the htp.TableData()
statements to htp.print("<TD>") and change the nested htf.* calls to serial htp.* calls (of course, not all would have to be changed this way). This would then permit the direct insertion of PL/SQL statements. PROBLEM: The required changes are very tedious and error-prone when dealing with large and complex HTML pages.

(2) Leave the nesting as is but write own functions to return
concatenated htf.* generated strings. In the above example, the three calls to htf.formSelectOption would be replaced by a single function call. This new function would query the database and generate a bunch of htf.formSelectOption calls whose output would be concatenated into a single return string. PROBLEM: Due to the large number of potential items in the Select list, it could exceed PL/SQL variable (or other) limitations. Limitations could include: number of parameters on function calls, size of parameters, nesting levels, etc. This is just a guess on my part--anyone know if there would be any problems taking this approach?

(3) There appear to be at least two other conversion utilities which
take the "dumb" approach of converting all HTML lines using htp.print() calls only. These utilities also provide rudimentary ASP/JSP/PSP style support of imbedded PL/SQL so updates can be based on single source. PROBLEM: Not sure other than it doesn't appear to be the Oracle recommended way. I'm also not sure if there are any performance implications of using only htp.print calls vs. the specific Oracle calls.

(4) Webalchemy claims to support imbedded PL/SQL (within HTML) as
well. However, running it against non-trivial HTML, results in incorrectly placed PL/SQL within nested htf.* calls. PROBLEM: Doesn't work.

Does anyone have any suggestions or approaches I may have overlooked? Thanks.

--Rob Received on Fri Aug 31 2001 - 13:41:58 CDT