Re: Forms 4.5: Record groups instead of temporary table

In article <35B8AF67.4ED08C8B_at_merconet.com.br>, Luis Cabral <cabral_at_merconet.com.br> wrote:
>Hi all,
>
>I have a complex report to do, and I was thinking about
>using a temporary table to do the work. Thanks to the
>help I received from comp.databases.oracle.server,
>I realized that the use of temporary tables under Oracle
>is *really* not a good option - it should not even be a option.

I have not seen what you were told about using temporary tables, but it sounds odd. For temporary tables, we create standard database tables, and use them in many places -- some are created dynamically when they are needed and dropped immediately after use, and others created permanently, then data inserted, then dropped immediately after use.

>So, I decided use a record group, in Forms 4.5, to store
>the temporary data I will work on. At maximum, I'll store
>about 6,000 rows with 10 columns, make all the processing in
>Forms and then pass the record group as a data parameter to a report.
>
>I have made some tests with good results, but I would thank any
>advice on using record groups and possible problems/limitations,
>as I only have used them with LOVs. The principal questions that
>I have are: what is the limit of the number of rows, where do they
>get stored (in memory or in a disk file) and what is the performance
>cost of having a lot of rows?

I believe record groups are stored in your client's memory, so that would be a limiting factor. I have used them for temporary storage, but with only a few hundred rows of data. With the number of rows and columns you are using, it is getting rather large, and you need to keep in mind that the network will need to download all that data to your client machine, which could take some time.

If it were my project, I would use a standard database table.

Steve Cosner
http://members.aol.com/stevec5088 Received on Sun Jul 26 1998 - 21:13:23 CEST