Re: porting SQL*Forms 3.0 to Oracle 7

In article <24269_at_mindlink.bc.ca>, Mark_Attisha_at_mindlink.bc.ca (Mark Attisha) writes:
> Has anyone had any experience with porting SQL*Forms 3.0 from Oracle 6 to
> Oracle 7? Do you have any procedures, guidelines, rules of thumb, etc. Do
> you have any advice on how to take advantage of stored procedures, shared
> SQL, database triggers, and snapshots?

RE: Forms v3.0 from v6 to O7

We just finished converting about 100 forms.

Unless you've done something funny in the forms in the first place, you won't have to change anything at all, just relink the new forms/menus executables with your user_exits (if any), and re-generate.

We use all the primary-key/foreign-key constraints under O7, so we had to examine our forms carefully, for places where our forms had blocks "out of order" with respect to their master-detail relationships. Otherwise, we could be trying to delete parents before children, etc.

We checked for anyplace we used USER in a user_exit, but this was a Pro*C issue, not a forms issue. There were many more Pro*C and Pro*Cobol issues during this conversion than there were SQL*Forms or SQL*Menus issues. Selecting USER into a variable, including indicator variables even if you had otherwise dealt with null query results, using other compile and link options, etc.

We didn't have to change CHAR to VARCHAR2 or anything else like that, because the forms have their own PL/SQL engine, and they handle all of that for you. That will probably eventually be an issue.

We changed some field names where they conflicted with reserved words.

Otherwise it was just "re-generate and run."

Good Luck!

Jennifer R. Amon            PHONE: (216) 775-6987   
Houck Computing Center        FAX: (216) 775-8573    
Oberlin College          
Oberlin, OH 44074        INTERNET: bamon_at_ocvaxc.cc.oberlin.edu
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