Oracle Forms Developer – Form Builder Reference, Volume 1

following successful execution, so their values should only be examined after an error has been detected
by a call to FORM_SUCCESS or FORM_FAILURE.
FORMS_DDL restrictions
The statement you pass to FORMS_DDL may not contain bind variable references in the string, but the
values of bind variables can be concatenated into the string before passing the result to FORMS_DDL.
For example, this statement is not valid:
Forms_DDL (’Begin Update_Employee (:emp.empno); End;’);
However, this statement is valid, and would have the desired effect:
Forms_DDL (’Begin Update_Employee (’||TO_CHAR(:emp.empno)
||’);End;’);
However, you could also call a stored procedure directly, using Oracle8’s shared SQL area over multiple
executions with different values for emp.empno:
Update_Employee (:emp.empno);
SQL statements and PL/SQL blocks executed using FORMS_DDL cannot return results to Form Builder
directly. (See Example 4.)
In addition, some DDL operations cannot be performed using FORMS_DDL, such as dropping a table or
database link, if Form Builder is holding a cursor open against the object being operated upon.
FORMS_DDL examples
Example 1
/*
** Built-in: FORMS_DDL
** Example: The expression can be a string literal.
*/
BEGIN
Forms_DDL(’create table temp(n NUMBER)’);
IF NOT Form_Success THEN
Message (’Table Creation Failed’);
ELSE
Message (’Table Created’);
END IF;
END;
Example 2
/*
** Built-in: FORMS_DDL
** Example: The string can be an expression or variable.
** Create a table with n Number columns.
** TEMP(COL1, COL2, ..., COLn).
*/
PROCEDURE Create_N_Column_Number_Table (n NUMBER) IS
my_stmt VARCHAR2(2000);
BEGIN
my_stmt := ’create table tmp(COL1 NUMBER’;
FOR I in 2..N LOOP
my_stmt := my_stmt||’,COL’||TO_CHAR(i)||’ NUMBER’;
END LOOP;
my_stmt := my_stmt||’)’;
/*
** Now, create the table...
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