Oracle Forms Developer – Form Builder Reference, Volume 1

PLSQL_Date_Format property
Description
This property establishes the format mask used in converting date values when executing PL/SQL (for a
trigger or called function or procedure) within Forms, in the following cases:
• evaluating TO_DATE (char_value) or TO_DATE (date_value) with no explicit format mask
• assigning a CHAR value to a date variable, or vice versa.
Applies to entire Forms application (global value)
Set programmatically
Refer to Built-in
• GET_APPLICATION_PROPERTY built-in
• SET_APPLICATION_PROPERTY built-in
Required/Optional optional. However, it is STRONGLY RECOMMENDED that, for a new
application, you set this property to a format mask containing full century and time information. It is
also recommended that this format mask be the same as the one specified in the Builtin_Date_Format
property.
Default
As noted above, it is strongly recommended that you explicitly set this value for a new application. If
you do not, the default value will be DD-MON-YY. (This value is used for compatibility with Release
4.5 and earlier.)
Compatibility with other Oracle products
In Oracle products other than Form Builder, PL/SQL version 2 does not necessarily use a default date
format mask of DD-MON-YY. Instead, it typically uses a format mask derived from the current NLS
environment. If for some reason you want your Forms application to exhibit the same behavior, you can
use the USER_NLS_DATE_FORMAT application property to get the current NLS date format mask,
and then assign it to the application’s PLSQL_DATE_FORMAT property.
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