Re: SQL FORMS beginner's questions

|> >In article <1lldp7$8ol_at_news.cs.tu-berlin.de> ernst_at_cs.tu-berlin.de (Ernst Kloecker) writes:
|> >>Hallo,
|> >>
|> >>I just started using SQL FORMS and ran into two simple problems :
|> >>
|> >>
|> >>1. How can one invoke an OS command from within SQL FORMS and pass a
|> >>field value as a parameter ? (OS = OS/2 in this case)
|> >>
|> >>
|> >>2. I find one feature of SQL FORMS quite annoying : When I press COMMIT,
|> >>all the records previously accessed are updated, even if I was only
|> >>browsing through their contents. I would rather have COMMIT to update
|> >>only the record on screen. Is it possible to do that ? Or else, is it
|> >>possible to disable scrolling through records with the cursor keys ?
|> >>
|> >>Can anybbody help me out ? Thanks in advance, Ernst.
|> >>--
|> >>-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
|

Your first question was ably answered. When you commit in forms it updates records which have been changed, not ones that you have only looked at. If you only change records in one block, then only the tables connected to the block are updated. For instance if you have a master detail screen and update the detail block, without making any changes to the master, only the table connect to the detail block is updated.

To put it anonter way: For a record to be updated, Oracle must think the record has been changed. If you believe more records are being updated than the ones you have changed, why do you believe so? One possiblility would be a post-query trigger which writes to a database field on the screen. If you have such a thing then indeed all the records queried are being updated by the trigger. If so change the field to non-database.

  gotta go netnews is crashing in 5 minutes hope this helps

                     Ian MacGregor
                      Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
                     (415) 926-3528