Oracle Forms Developer – Form Builder Reference, Volume 1

When-Validate-Item trigger
Description
Fires during the Validate the Item process. Specifically, it fires as the last part of item validation for
items with the New or Changed validation status.
Definition Level form, block, or item
Legal Commands
SELECT statements, unrestricted built-ins
Enter Query Mode no
Usage Notes
• Use a When-Validate-Item trigger to supplement Form Builder default item validation processing.
• It is possible to write a When-Validate-Item trigger that changes the value of an item that Form
Builder is validating. If validation succeeds, Form Builder marks the changed item as Valid and
does not re-validate it. While this behavior is necessary to avoid validation loops, it does make it
possible for your application to commit an invalid value to the database.
• The setting you choose for the Defer Required Enforcement property can affect the When-Validate-
Item trigger. See Defer_Required_Enforcement for details.
On Failure
If fired as part of validation initiated by navigation, navigation fails, and the focus remains on the
original item.
Fires In
Validate the Item
See Process Flowcharts
When-Validate-Item trigger examples
Example
The following example finds the commission plan in the COMMPLAN
table, based on the current value of the commcode item in the
EMPLOYEE block in the form, to verify that the code is valid.
If the code in the COMMPLAN table is located, the description of
the COMMPLAN is obtained and deposited in the non-database
Description item. Otherwise, an error is raised.
** Method 1: Using a SELECT...INTO statement, the trigger
** looks more readable but can be less efficient
** than Method 2 because for ANSI Standard
** compliance, the SELECT...INTO statement must
** return an error if more than one row is
** retrieved that matches the criteria. This
** implies PL/SQL may attempt to fetch data twice
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