Re: forms libraries...

Isaias Gutierrez wrote:

> I'm using forms 4.5 in Developer 2000. We currently have 2 libraries
>that are attached to most of our forms (on the file side). I'm trying to
>see if I can add a function to one of the libraries. The problem is this:
>I'm trying to make a copy of the library file and work on it locally on my
>hard drive without affecting the production version. From what I have seen
>the libraries are attached with the path removed. From reading the
>documentation, it seems that for the libraries, when the path is removed,
>the form looks at the forms45_path or Oracle_Path registry variables.

We hold all our runtime directories in a shared directory called r:\apps However, all our developers have a personal working directory named u:\working

The Forms45_path variable contains the following values: c:\working;r:\apps

If I have a library named fred.pll, the official runtime version will be stored in the r:\apps directory. Normally there is no such file in my c:\working directory

Every time that Forms runs, it will check c:\working for the form or library that is being called. Normally it won't find it, so it will then go on to search r:\apps and will find it there as part of the official application. However, when I am working on fred.pll, I copy it into c:\working, and so if I run the application, it will pick up the working version in c:\working first, and so ignore the earlier version of fred.pll in r:\apps. Because all the other developers don't have access to my c:\working directory (they all ave their own version of c:\working on their own PCs, which won't contain fred.pll), whenever they run the application, they will pick up the official version of fred.pll which exists in r:\apps.

This happens automatically, without any need to recompile any of your forms. There is one exception to this: if you change the number of parameters to a procedure/function in fred.pll, then even if the new parameter is optional, you will need to recompile any calling forms or the application will crash. This seems like a bug to me, and I don't know if it's fixed in Forms 5/6 or not.

This approach enables development to go on with each user having their own set of working files, and everybody sharing one official group set of application files. We do the same for reports25_path and graphics25_path.

Never hard code a library path into a Form - it almost always leads to problems sooner or later.

I hope this helps,

Simon Hedges
Gloucester
UK Received on Sat Oct 23 1999 - 12:02:29 CEST