Q: How to get confirmation for non-database fields under O5V2

I've been doing some upgrades of an old Oracle5 sql*forms (v2.0) application where some of the fields were not asking for confirmation when the user presses [Exit/Cancel].

The problem I'm having right now is getting it to request confirmation (commit or lose changes) on a multi-record display. There are rows of the following information:

Title Officer's Name Sex Mail Rank #

All fields ask for confirmation if they are changed when [Exit/Cancel] is pressed except for the "Title" field, because its not a database field. Stored in the table with the name, sex, mail, rank # is a field called the tid. Its a integer field. Another table contains the unique 'tid' integer and a char field with... the title the tid corresponds to. So when the block comes up, it selects the tid from the lookup table to get the character description of the Title that it update the display field with.

When the POST-FIELD trigger is hit, it searches for the Title in that lookup table, matching it with its 'tid' which it then copies to the database field. If it doesn't match, the user is stuck in that field and given a message to use a valid 'Title' type, or press [Help] for a secondary screen to query that lookup table.

The problem is, if (other than the FIRST record) the title field is changed and [Exit/Cancel] is pressed, any changes to the title field are lost, no confirmation is requested. If the user knows they typed in a valid entry, they might not realize their changes were lost as opposed to 'already committed'. I've looked in the manuals I have (a good 8 inches thick, DBA guide, developers guide, users guide, revision from previous versions, etc.) but they don't list a situation such as this. It seems, from my own personal database experience, to be something that would be easily solvable by someone with more experience with oracle specifically.

Once again, I'm running Oracle5, SQL*FORMS v2.0, SQL*PLUS v2.1.11.

Any help would be greatly appreciated! Email me your suggestions and I'll post them if theres a request for it, otherwise, if anyone wants me to pass on the info, just drop me a line too.

Thanks in advance,

        Karl Meiser

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scott_at_interaccess.com