Oracle Forms Developer – Form Builder Reference, Volume 1

Required (Item) property
Description
When a new record is being entered, specifies that the item is invalid when its value is NULL.
Applies to list item, text item
Set Form Builder, programmatically
Refer to Built-in
• GET_ITEM_INSTANCE_PROPERTY
• GET_ITEM_PROPERTY
• SET_ITEM_INSTANCE_PROPERTY
• SET_ITEM_PROPERTY
Default
No
Usage Notes
When an item has Required set to Yes, and item-level validation is in effect, by default Form Builder will
not allow navigation out of the item until a valid value is entered. To allow the end user to move freely
among the items in the record, set the Defer Required Enforcement property to Yes. This will postpone
enforcement of the Required attribute from item validation to record validation.
Even when Required is set to Yes, there are circumstances when an item’s value could be NULL. Form
Builder checks for required items as part of its validation process: each item in a new record is subject to
validation, but queried data is presumed to be valid and an item is not validated unless it is changed. For
example, if the record already exists and is queried from the database, the item that would be Required
could come in as NULL.
Setting a poplist’s or T-list’s Required property may affect the values the list will display: When
selected, an instance of a poplist will display an extra null value if its current value is NULL or if its
effective Required property is No (false). When selecting the current value of an instance of a T-list, it
will be unselected (leaving the T-list with no selected value) if its effective Required property is No
(false). But if its effective Required property is Yes (true), selecting a T-list instance’s current value will
have no effect. The value will stay selected.
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