Help topic not found.  Check the online help for related topics.


About error messages

Each component has a unique error message prefix:

Prefix	Component
FRM	Form Builder
OG	Graphics Builder
PDE	Procedure Builder
REP	Report Builder
BRW	Query Builder
BRS	Schema Builder
NX, XBD	Translation Builder
Note:  On UNIX, Report Builder sets the value of the $status variable that appears in some messages to be 0 (successful completion) or 1 (unsuccessful completion).

In addition to the Forms Developer or Reports Developer error messages, you may encounter error messages from other sources:

Prefix	Source	Help
ORA	Oracle Server	Oracle8 Error Messages manual
PLS	PL/SQL	Oracle8 Error Messages manual
NET	SQL*Net	Oracle Network Products Messages manual
The Oracle8 Error Messages manual contains error message codes and descriptions for all database utilities such as SQL*DBA, SQL*Loader,SQL*Module,Export, Import, and the Oracle Precompilers.

System-specific error messages are documented in your operating system documentation.


Calling Oracle Support Services

Some errors (that is, internal errors) will require that you call Oracle Support Services to report the error.  When you call Support Services, please have the following information at hand:

1	Your name, company, and Oracle Support ID number.

2	The hardware, operating system, and release number of the operating system you are using.

3	The complete version number of the component you were using when you encountered the error, including revision number and port release number, if any.  (If you are unsure of the component's version number, choose Help [image] About.)

4	All other products (and version numbers) in use when you encountered the error (for example, Oracle 8.0.4).

5	If you encountered one or more error messages, the exact message numbers and descriptions, in the order they appeared.

6	A description of the problem, including any unusual conditions.

7	The problem severity, according to the following codes:

•	1:  Program not usable.  Critical impact on operations.

•	2:  Program usable.  Operations severely restricted.

•	3:  Program usable with limited functions.  Not critical to overall operations.

•	4:  Problem circumvented by customer.  Minimal effect, if any, on operations.


Abnormal conditions

Sometimes you may encounter an error that is known as an abnormal condition, which may arise from one of the following causes:

•	Someone has done something that prevented your application from completing the requested task.  For example, if someone bypassed the user interface and changed data in a database table, they might have typed an invalid value.

•	A software bug prevented the requested task from completing.

Action   First contact your system administrator to determine if the message was caused by something other than Forms Developer or Reports Developer.  If you determine that the message was not the result of user error or a system problem, then contact Oracle Support Services.


Using the online help

The following guidelines will help you to make effective use of the online help system:

•	Familiarize yourself with the Contents tab to get an idea of the scope of the topics covered in the online help.

•	Click the Related Topics button directly below topic titles for a list of topics related to the current topic.

•	Click the Options button at the top of any topic to set Keep Help on Top, so that help topics remain on your screen as you develop applications.

•	Click the Glossary button at the top of any topic for definitions of unfamiliar terms.


Documentation roadmap

To get started and become proficient with building applications:

1	Review the Quick Tour for a brief overview of each component:

•	Choose Help [image] Quick Tour.

2	Step through the Cue Cards to learn how to perform the most common tasks:

•	Choose Help [image] Cue Cards.

3	Display the online manuals (also available in hardcopy form):

•	Choose Help [image] Manuals.

4	Access the online help system:

•	Choose Help [image] Help Topics.

•	For context-sensitive help, press [Help] (this is usually the F1 key on most platforms).


Glossary

A

    action
    active window/view
    ActiveX
    Ada
    aggregation
    alert
    alignment
    alias
    All tool
    ancestor
    ancestor group
    anchor
    anchor point
    anonymous block
    antecedent
    applet
    application
    argument
    ASCII
    attached library
    attribute
    attribute columns
    attribute mask
    Attribute tool
    attribute value
    axis chart

 B

    background element
    background process
    baseline value
    Batch
    batch compile
    bind reference
    bind variable
    block
    body
    boilerplate
    border
    bounding box
    break chart
    break column
    break group
    break report
    break trigger
    breakpoint
    builder
    built-in datatype
    built-ins
    built-in macro
    buffer
    button
    button procedure

C

    cache (memory)
    call interface
    call stack
    canvas
    canvas view
    cartridge
    cascading style sheet
    category
    category axis
    cell
    CGI
    CGM
    CHAR datatype
    chart element
    chart item
    chart template
    check box
    checksum
    child
    child query
    classification
    clause
    client
    client/server architecture
    Clipboard
    CMDFILE
    collection type
    color palette
    column
    column object
    command line
    comment
    commit
    comparison operators
    compile
    component
    concurrency
    condition
    confine mode
    connect
    connect string
    constraint
    construct
    context area
    continuous axis
    control point
    coordinate plane
    coordinate system
    coordinates (x, y)
    copy
    correlated subquery
    cross product
    crosstab
    cursor
    custom measure
    cut

D

    damage
    data dictionary
    data link
    data model
    data structure node
    database
    database trigger
    datasource
    datatype
    DATE
    date axis
    debug
    debug action
    debug trigger
    Debugger
    deconstructed object
    default
    deliver
    dependency tree
    dependency view
    dependent data
    descendant
    designer
    Designer (Oracle)
    detail query
    dialog box
    DIANA
    dimension
    dimension hierarchy
    dimension value
    disabled
    discrete axis
    display
    display item
    downward-growing
    drag
    drill
    duplicate
    dynamic saved selection

E

    EBCDIC
    edge
    Edge/Fill/Text Display
    editor
    element
    element type
    Ellipsis button
    enabled
    enclosing object
    encryption
    environment
    exception
    Exception tool
    executable argument
    execute
    export
    export file
    expression
    external PL/SQL library
    external query

F

    family
    Family tool
    field
    field template
    file node
    fill area
    filter
    firewall
    flattened object
    flex mode
    focus
    foreground element
    foreign key
    form layout
    form letter layout
    format mask
    format trigger
    formula
    formula column
    frame
    function

G

    generate
    Generate
    Global Registry
    global variable
    grant
    gridlines
    group
    group filter
    group tree
    GUI

H

    handle
    header
    heading node
    hidden
    hierarchy
    HTML
    HTTP
    hyperlink
    hypertext

I

    ICD
    icon
    image
    implied item
    import
    independent data
    index
    inherit
    inner bounding box
    input item
    insert mode
    internet
    Interpreter script
    intranet
    IP (Internet Protocol) Address
    item
    item node

J

    JAR
    Java
    join
    justification

K

    keyword

L

    label
    Launcher
    level
    Level tool
    layout
    layout unit
    lexical reference
    library
    link
    link file
    list box
    list item
    list of values
    List tool
    local database
    local registry
    local variable
    logical operators
    logical page
    loop

M

    macro
    mailing label layout
    margin
    master/detail layout
    Match tool
    matrix cell
    matrix layout
    matrix report
    measure
    megabyte (Mb)
    message box
    method
    modal window
    modeless window
    module
    multi-line field

N

    NA value
    nested matrix
    NOCACHE
    node
    non-caching column
    NULL value
    numeric operators

O

    object
    object column
    object group
    object handle
    Object Navigator
    object table
    object type
    ODBC
    OLE
    OLE container
    OLE Server
    Oracle datatype
    Oracle Designer
    ORACLE_HOME
    organization node
    origin
    outer bounding box
    overflow

P

    packaged function
    package
    package body
    package specification
    page
    page break
    palette
    pane
    panel
    parameter
    parameter list
    parent
    paste
    pattern
    Pcode
    PDF
    physical page
    placeholder username
    plot type
    PL/SQL
    pld file
    pll file
    pls file
    plx file
    pop-up list
    port
    pre-defined action
    pre-defined type
    preference
    preview
    Previewer
    primary key
    primitive
    printer control code
    prt file
    procedure
    program unit
    project
    project file
    project item
    Project Navigator
    project node
    project registry
    project view
    Project Wizard
    property
    property class
    protocol

Q

    qualifying dimension
    query
    query filter function
    quit

R

    radio button
    radio group
    Range tool
    RC4
    RDBMS
    rdf file
    rep file
    read consistency
    record
    record group
    REF column
    reference line
    refresh
    register
    registry
    relational operator
    remote database
    repeating frame
    replace mode
    report-level objects
    Reports Background Engine (RWRBE60)
    Reports Queue Manager (RWRQM60)
    Reports Server (RWMTS60)
    Reports Web Cartridge
    Reports Web CGI (RWCGI60)
    rex file
    RGB
    root
    root node
    row
    row object
    RTF
    run
    runfile
    Runtime
    Runtime Parameter Form

S

    saved selection
    Saved Selection tool
    schema
    scope
    script
    section
    SELECT statement
    selection
    selection script
    Selector
    Selector tool
    session
    sibling
    socket
    Sort tool
    source
    specification
    split bar
    SQL
    sql file
    SQL script
    SQL statement
    stack
    statement
    static saved selection
    stored program unit
    stored subprogram
    style sheet
    subprogram
    subproject
    subproject node
    summary column
    SYLK
    syntax
    system variable

T

    table
    table type
    tabular
    target
    target node
    TCP
    tear-off menu
    text item
    title bar
    title page
    toggle
    tool
    toolbar
    tool palette
    Top/Bottom tool
    trailer
    transaction
    trigger
    type

U

    update
    URL
    user exit
    user-defined action
    user-defined type
    user-defined macro
    user registry

V

    valid XML
    value axis
    value construct
    variable
    varying array type
    VBX
    VBX control
    view
    virtual directory
    virtual file system
    visual attribute

W

    Web
    Web browser
    Web cartridge
    Web link
    Web server
    well-formed XML
    wildcard
    window
    WKS
    WRB
    WWW

X

    XML

Y

Z

    zoom


In Project Builder, a command string supplied either by Project Builder or by the user that applies to files of a given type.  An action is not restricted to a single file type; for example, if the action "Compile" is defined for both forms and C source files, selecting "Compile Project" will compile all .fmb and .c files using the appropriate tools.  See also:  pre-defined action, user-defined action.


A high-level programming language developed by the U.S. Department of Defense for use in embedded computer systems.


A window or view that can receive user input.


(Oracle Express) The consolidation of data for several dimension values into a single value, such as the total units sold for all the cities, or into a smaller set of values, such as the average units sold for cities in each region. Data is often collected at the lowest level of detail and is aggregated into higher level totals for analysis.


A modal window that notifies you of a condition that occurred because of your last action.  You must respond to an alert.


The way in which data is positioned in a field.  It may be positioned to the left, right, center, flush/left, flush/right, or flush/center of the defined width of a field.


A secondary name used in a SQL statement to reference a table, view, or column.


(Oracle Express) A Selector dialog box tool that allows you to select all of the values in a dimension, or all of the values in a dimension for a specific hierarchy.


(Oracle Express) A dimension value at any level above a particular value in a hierarchy. The ancestor value is the aggregated total of the values of its descendants.  The following example shows the dimension value "Europe" as the ancestor of "France," "Lyon," and "Paris" in the GEOGRAPHY dimension.


A group that owns another group, either directly or indirectly.


A layout object used to fix a spot on one object to a spot on another object, ensuring the position of the first object in relation to the second object.


(Oracle Express) A specific dimension value that is used when selecting dimension values based on their family relationship or when navigating through a hierarchy.


A PL/SQL program unit that has no name and does not require the explicit presence of the BEGIN and END keywords to enclose the executable statements.  Since they are unnamed, anonymous blocks cannot be referenced by other program units.


An object that appears in another object's group tree at any position above that other object.  Every object is an antecedent of its descendants.


A Java term for small programs that can be dynamically imported into Web pages or applications as needed.


One or more program modules used to achieve a specific result.  Applications can be nested within other applications.  For example, an application to control a company's inventory could consist of various Form Builder applications for input of data, and various Graphics Builder applications to display the data visually.


1. An optional expression passed to a program unit for the program unit to operate on.
2. Clauses containing keywords and their specified values.


Acronym for American National Standard Code for Information Interchange.


A read only collection of PL/SQL subprograms, usually provided with an application to supply necessary PL/SQL source.  Program units in an attached library are implicitly loaded when they are first called by another program unit at compile-time or runtime.  They remain loaded for quick reuse, which reduces runtime memory requirements and improves the performance of an application.  See also:  library .


1. See property.
2.  A part or component of an Oracle8 object type definition.  Each attribute has a name and an Oracle8 datatype.  When an object table is created based on the object type, the columns in the table correspond to the attributes in the object type definition.  When a column object in a relational table is created based on the object type, the column object contains the equivalent of sub-columns, each of which corresponds to an attribute in the object type definition.  Each Oracle8 object attribute in a table is treated as a separate data item, as if it were a separate column.  This is true for both object tables and column objects in relational tables.
3. (Oracle Express) A descriptive characteristic that is shared by dimension values. Attributes represent logical groupings that allow users to select data based on like characteristics. For example, in a database representing footwear, you can use a shoe color attribute to select all boots, sneakers, and slippers that share the same color.


The columns that compose a column object (Oracle8).


In Graphics Builder, the first element in an attribute descriptor.  It is a 32-bit mask that informs the toolkit of the attributes that will be set or retrieved by a subsequent function call.  Only those elements that have their corresponding bits set in the attribute mask are set or retrieved.


(Oracle Express) A Selector dialog box tool that allows you to select dimension values based on attributes and attribute values. For example, in a database representing soft drinks, you might select all products whose size is 1 liter. In this example, Size is an attribute and 1 liter is an attribute value.


(Oracle Express) The values in the database that make up an attribute. For example, in a database representing ice cream products, the following attribute values might belong to a flavor attribute in a Product dimension: vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry. Dimension values at various levels in the Product dimension -- brand, form, and size, for instance -- might share the same value for flavor.


A type of chart in which the data is plotted according to where it lies along the chart's edges, called axes.  An axis chart may contain two or three axes, each of which may be one of the following types:  discrete, continuous, or date.


The white part of a pattern.  You apply color to the background element using the Fill Color palette.


A non-interactive process that runs in an operating system environment and performs some service or action.  Certain Oracle products use background processes for different tasks, such as performing and coordinating tasks on behalf of concurrent users of the database, processing and delivering electronic messages, and managing printing services.


The value used as the starting point for plotting fields on the continuous axis of a chart.


The executable that executes an application in batch mode, without using a windowing system.


To translate, at once, several PL/SQL program units into a machine executable form.


A reference to a parameter used to replace a single literal value (e.g., a character string, number, or date) appearing anywhere in a PL/SQL construct or a SQL SELECT statement.  For a bind reference, you must precede the parameter name with a colon (:).


A global variable you can create and use outside of a PL/SQL package.


1. The basic program unit in PL/SQL, defined by the keywords DECLARE, BEGIN, EXCEPTION, and END.
2. In Form Builder, a logical container that relates to a database table or view.


1. Contains the same information as the program unit specification, and also includes the actual implementation of the subprogram (i.e., its sequence of actions).  In most cases, only a body must be defined for a subprogram.
2. In Report Builder, a region that contains the bulk of the report layout (text, graphics, data, and computations).  The report body appears between the report header and trailer pages.


Text and/or graphics that appear in a report every time it is run.  In some products this is called "constant" text or graphics.


A user-defined outline around a layout object, usually used to highlight its contents.  Borders are drawn such that half the width of the border lies outside the edge of the object, and half inside the edge.


See inner bounding box, outer bounding box.


An axis chart that displays two categories of data along one axis.


A query column assigned to a break group.


A group used to break or categorize report data.  All data in query columns assigned to a break group appear above the data in columns belonging to other groups.  Each record fetched for a break group appears only once, while multiple related records in other groups can be displayed.


A report that contains categories that break the report data into sets.


A PL/SQL block that executes each time a breakpoint is reached.  See also:  breakpoint.


A debug action you can place at any executable source line in a PL/SQL subprogram.  A breakpoint interrupts execution of the program unit and passes control to the PL/SQL Interpreter.  Breakpoints allow you to incrementally execute a subprogram and search for runtime errors.  See also:  break trigger.


Refers to a component used to create a specific type of document. For example, Form Builder is used to create forms, while Report Builder is used to create reports.


A datatype defined and supported by the Oracle Server.


A collection of extensions to the PL/SQL language that are designed to be used with the software.  Built-ins include datatypes, procedures, functions, exceptions, and constants.


In Project Builder, macro shipped with Project Builder.  See also:  macro.


A temporary storage area for data during the transfer of that data between the computer and a peripheral, or between parts of a computer.  A buffer prevents loss of information due to differences in the speed or timing of the transfer and speeds up certain functions.


1. An interface element used to select an action item, display a dialog box, or acknowledge the current condition.
2. An object in an application that has a PL/SQL procedure associated with it.  The procedure is generally executed upon a user mouse event.


A PL/SQL procedure associated with an application object, that is executed when a specific mouse event occurs on the item at runtime (e.g. clicking the button).  It does this by establishing a hierarchy for the fetched data containing a break group.


A temporary storage place for database data that is currently being accessed or changed by users, or for data that Oracle Server requires to support users. The terms are often used interchangeably.


An interface that enables you to invoke Forms Developer or Reports Developer component executables from other Oracle products, or a 3GL program.


A chain of subprogram calls, from the initial entry point down to the currently executing subprogram.  Each subprogram call is represented by a frame on the downward-growing call stack, in which newly entered subprograms are added to the bottom of the stack.


   See editor.


In Form Builder, the background object on which you place the interface objects that users will interact with in the runtime application.  A canvas view is usually associated with a window.


Manageable objects that plug in to the client, application server, or database through an open API.


See style sheet.


A label component that allows differentiation between information on the basis of non-hierarchical delineation or compartments rather than sensitivity levels.  With classification, they are used as a means of restricting access to information.


See discrete axis.


An instance of data in a spreadsheet (e.g., Microsoft Excel).


Acronym for Common Gateway Interface. The industry-standard technique for running applications on a Web server.  Whereas standard HTML documents retrieved from a Web server are static (the exact same text is retrieved every time) CGI enables a program running on the Web server to communicate with another computer to generate "dynamic" HTML documents in response to user-entered information.


Acronym for Computer Graphics Metafile.  A file format recognized internationally and used to store and transport object-oriented graphics from one system or program to another.


An Oracle datatype provided for ANSI/ISO compatibility.  A CHAR column is a fixed-length column and can contain any printable characters, such as A, 3, &, or blanks, and can have from 1 to 255 characters or can be null.


A bar, line, symbol, or other graphical object that represents a single value for a field.


A bordered rectangle of any size used to embed Graphics Builder charts in a form or report.


A collection of attributes and properties that defines the format of a chart.


A interface element, appearing as a small square, that a user can toggle on or off.


An error-checking algorithm.


1. An object that is a member of a group, and is immediately below that group object in its group tree.  The objects that compose a group object are children of that group.  Every object is a child of its parent.
2. (Oracle Express) A dimension value at the level immediately below a particular value in a hierarchy. Values of children are included in the calculation that produces the aggregated total for a parent.  A dimension value may be a child for more than one parent if the dimension has more than one hierarchy.  The following example shows the dimension values "Lyon" and "Paris" as the children of "France" in the GEOGRAPHY dimension.


See detail query.


A hierarchical level that denotes the sensitivity of the information that is labeled.  Classifications are used as a means of restricting access to information.


A part of a SQL statement that does not constitute the full statement; for example, a "WHERE clause."


A user, software application, or computer that requests the services, data, or processing of another application or computer (the "server").  In a two-task environment, the client is the user process.  In a network environment, the client is the local user process and the server may be local or remote.


Separation of processing between two CPUs, one acting as the server that provides services in a transaction and the other as the client in the transaction, requesting and receiving services.  All responsibilities of shared data management can be processed by the computer running the database management system while the workstations running the database application concentrate on the interpretation and display of data.


A memory buffer.  An object remains on the Clipboard until you cut or copy another object, or until you quit the application.


A user-defined datatype that describes a data unit made up of an indefinite number of elements, all of the same datatype.  Varying array types and table types are collection types.  (Oracle8)


An argument that allows you to specify a file that contains a set of command line arguments for Forms Developer executables.


Contains all the colors available to the windowing system, the drawing surface, or a window and its views.


1. A vertical space in a database table that represents a particular domain of data.  A column has a column name (e.g., ENAME) and a specific datatype (e.g., CHAR).  For example, in a table of employee information, all of the employees' names would constitute one column.  A record group column represents a database column.
2. In Report Builder, a data model object created automatically for each column expression in a query's SELECT list, or created manually to perform summaries, formulas, or act as a placeholder.


In an Oracle8 relational table or object table, a column whose definition is based on an object type.  The column is a composite, the parts of which correspond to the attributes of the object type.


An operating-system command line.  Most Oracle products can be invoked from a command line using a number of executable arguments.


A language construct for the inclusion of explanatory text in a program, the execution of which remains unaffected.


To make changes to data in the database permanent.  Before changes are stored, both the old and new data exist so that changes can be stored or the data can be restored to its prior state.


(Oracle Express)

>	Greater than

<	Less than

=	Equal to

<=	Less than or equal to

>=	Greater than or equal to

<>	Not equal to

For numbers, the operands are widened to the least common type (Integer is preferred over Long, which is preferred over Single, which is preferred over Double). For Strings, the comparison is case-sensitive and is based on the collating sequence used by the language specified in the Windows Control Panel. The result is 0 for FALSE and -1 for TRUE.


To translate a source program into a binary, executable format.  PL/SQL program units must be compiled before they can be executed.


A specific target object that is a part of a larger application; e.g. a form in an order entry system, or a library that is shared among many other elements.  See also:  target.


The simultaneous access of the same data by multiple users executing different database applications or the same application.  In database software concurrency requires additional logic to ensure that all users see consistent data and that all changes are made in the proper order.


An expression whose value is either true or false, such as X> 100.  For example, you can set a condition in a query when you want the query to display only those rows that evaluate as true in your expression.


Layout editor mode that prevents child objects from being moved or resized on or outside their parent objects.


To log on to a database.  You must connect if you want to create or modify queries or access an application stored in a database.


The set of parameters, including a protocol, that SQL*Net uses to connect to a specific Oracle instance on the network.


A rule or restriction concerning a piece of data (such as a NOT NULL restriction on a column) that is enforced at the database level, rather than the object or application level.


A PL/SQL code structure.  There are two types of constructs: non-value constructs do not return a value; value constructs return a value.


A work area in which Oracle Server stores the current SQL statement, and if the statement is a query, the result's column headings and one row of the result.  Also referred to as cursor.


An axis that plots values that begin with one value and continue until they reach another value.  Thus, these values are mathematically related.  Dependent data is usually plotted along this axis, also called the value axis.


The four corner points of the virtual rectangle that constitutes an object's ideal shape.  When you select an object on the layout, its control points appear.  Depending on the object selected, you may be able to modify it by dragging a control point.


The two-dimensional grid on which drawing takes place.


The type of x, y units used to place and size objects in the Layout Editor view.  The coordinate systems available are 1) character, which uses the platform's native character cell size, and 2) real, which can be in units of pixels, centimeters, inches, or points.


The location points for objects appearing in the layout.  x and y coordinates determine the horizontal (x) and vertical (y) placement of objects.


To store a replica of a selected object on the Clipboard, so that it may be pasted elsewhere in an editor if desired.


A subquery based on the same tables as the parent query (i.e., references columns in the tables included in its parent query).


Group that owns two or more other groups and performs a mathematical cross product (i.e., correlates values between them).


See matrix cell.


1. A small icon representing the position of the mouse.  The shape of the cursor varies, depending on the selected tool.
2. An internal pointer to data retrieved by a query.  A cursor points only to one row of data at a time; however, you can use built-in subprograms to move the cursor to any row in the data set.


(Oracle Express) A formula created by a user, which allows fine-tuning of data analysis. You create custom measures using base measures in the database. For example, if the database contains the existing measure Volume Share, you can use this measure to create a custom measure named Volume Share Year Ago. This custom measure would allow you to look at a product's absolute share from the previous year.


To delete one or more objects and store them in the Clipboard, so that they may be pasted elsewhere in an editor, if desired.


A view is damaged when it is totally or partially occluded by another view.


A set of tables and views owned by the database administrator.  It is a central source of information for Oracle Server and other relational databases.


A data model object used to define a master/detail (parent-child) relationship between a group and a query.


A relational model that defines what data should be fetched from the database, what values should be computed, and how data should be ordered in a report.  Report Builder objects that define the data model are queries, groups, columns, parameters, and links.


A source for data returned by a query, including database objects such as tables, views, synonyms, snapshots, and queries stored as views.


In Project Builder, a node in the Project Navigator denoting a project item that governs the structure of an open project.  For example, the Global Registry node denotes the Global Registry, which contains a list of local registries and a list of global type definitions.


A set of dictionary tables and user tables that are treated as a unit.


A stored PL/SQL block that is implicitly executed when a triggering INSERT, UPDATE, or DELETE statement is issued against the associated table in the database.  See also:  debug trigger.


A standard form of data.  Some common Oracle datatypes are CHAR, VARCHAR2, DATE, NUMBER, LONG, RAW, and LONG RAW.


An Oracle Server datatype.  A date column may contain a date and time between January 1, 9999 BC and December 31, 9999 AD.


An axis that plots date values that begin at one date and continue until they reach another date.


To detect, diagnose, and eliminate runtime errors in programs.


A user-specified event placed in a PL/SQL subprogram, usually for the purpose of troubleshooting runtime errors.


A conditional debug action you can place at any executable source line in a PL/SQL subprogram.  If the specified condition is met, the specified action is taken before execution of the subprogram resumes.  See also:  database trigger.


The Procedure Builder functionality within the software component used for testing and debugging.


In Oracle8, object types and objects are composites, built of parts or attributes.  Forms Developer or Reports Developer treats each part/attribute as an independent, individually-selectable data item.  This treatment results in a deconstructed object (sometimes also known as a flattened object).  The object is not an homogeneous entity within the Developer environment.


A piece of data that depends on other data for its value.  For example, an employee's  years of service may have the value 10, which is dependent upon the value of the employee's name.  Also called value data.


A value supplied by the system when a user does not specify a required command parameter or attribute.


To prepare and provide a completed application for distribution and deployment.


In Project Builder, the mechanism used by Project Builder to determine how to compile files that are referenced in projects.  Items toward the top left of the tree depend on items toward the lower right; so, for example, if a header file is either out of date or more recent than the executable file it is used to build, then the Project Builder will rebuild the executable file, given a Build command.  Dependencies also extend to subprojects.  For example, if a subproject consisting of a function library has been rebuilt, the Project Builder "knows" the dependent project will need to be rebuilt in order to use the updated library functions.  See also:  dependency view.


In Project Builder, shows files in the Project Navigator in the order in which they depend on each other, with project nodes at the highest point in the hierarchy, followed by target nodes, which are followed by buildable components of those targets.  For example, an executable form depends on and will be followed by an .fmb file, which may depend on and be followed by a library used for a USEREXIT procedure, and so on.  See also: project view, target.


1. An object that appears in another object's group tree at any position below that other object.  Every object is a descendant of its antecedents.
2. (Oracle Express) A dimension value at any level below a particular value in a hierarchy. Values of descendants are included in the calculation that produces the aggregated total for an ancestor.  The following example shows the dimension values "France," "Lyon," and "Paris" as descendants of "Europe" in the GEOGRAPHY dimension.


The interface used to design different components of a Forms Developer or Reports Developer application.


See Oracle Designer.


An application modeling, design and generation toolset.  Using Oracle Designer, you can generate forms and menus from module definitions recorded in the Oracle Repository.


When defining a master/detail report, the detail query retrieves all related records for each record retrieved by the master, or parent, query.


A partial screen or window that prompts you to enter information necessary to complete an operation.


An intermediate representation of a program unit, generated by the compiler.  The DIANA includes all of the syntactic and semantic information for a compiled program unit.  In order to compile a reference to a program unit, the compiler must have access to the referenced program unit's DIANA.  For example, if program unit A calls program unit B, the DIANA for B must be available before A can be compiled.


(Oracle Express) A type of database object that is a list of values that provide categories for data. A dimension acts as an index for identifying values of a variable. For example, if you have sales data with a separate sales figure for each month, then the data has a MONTH dimension; that is, the data is organized by month. A dimension is similar to a key in a relational database.

Any item of data within a multidimensional variable can be uniquely and completely selected by specifying one member from each of the variable's dimensions. For example, if a sales variable is dimensioned by MONTH, PRODUCT, and MARKET, specifying "January" for the MONTH dimension, "Stereos" for the PRODUCT dimension, and "Eastern Region" for the MARKET dimension uniquely specifies a single cell in the variable. Thus, dimensions offer a concise and intuitive way of organizing and selecting data for retrieval, updating, and performing calculations.

A dimension can be simple, with values that are single text or integer values, or it can be conjoint, with values that are combinations of values in other dimensions. A composite is not a dimension, but it is a conjoint-like internal object that Express treats like a dimension for the purpose of handling sparse data.


(Oracle Express) One element in the list that makes up a dimension. For example, a computer company might have dimension values in the PRODUCT dimension called "LAPPC" and "DESKPC." Values in the GEOGRAPHY dimension might include "Boston" and "Paris." Values in the TIME dimension might include "MAY96" and "JAN97."


An interface element state that means a menu item, button, etc., cannot be used in the current context; i.e., it does not respond to keyboard or mouse input.


An axis that plots distinct values at fixed intervals.  These values are not mathematically related.  Independent data is usually plotted along this axis, also called the category axis.


A Graphics Builder document containing any combination of charts, images, text objects and shapes.


In Form Builder, an item that stores or displays information that must be fetched or assigned programmatically with PL/SQL.


As it pertains to the call stack, in which newly entered subprograms are added to the bottom of the stack.  The earliest frame, corresponding to the initial program entry point, is at the top of the stack, while the latest frame, associated with the most deeply nested subprogram call, is at the bottom of the stack.


Press and hold down a mouse button while you slide the mouse pointer to a particular location in a window.


(Oracle Express) To navigate up and down through the levels of aggregation in a dimension that has a hierarchy. When selecting dimension values or viewing data, you can expand or collapse a dimension hierarchy by drilling down or up in it. Drilling down expands the view to include child values that are associated with parent values in the dimension hierarchy. Drilling up collapses the list of descendant values associated with a parent value in the dimension hierarchy.

You can click on a plus icon ( [image]) to drill down on (expand) the hierarchy or on a minus icon ( [image]) to drill up on (collapse) the hierarchy.

In the Selector, you can click on the drill icon ( [image]) to display the Drill dialog box so you can select a level of detail for the entire dimension.


An option that allows you to copy objects directly on the layout without affecting the contents of the Clipboard.


(Oracle Express) A saved selection that can have different dimension values each time it is evaluated. The selected dimension values might differ from use to use. In contrast, a static saved selection is an unchanging list of dimension values. A dynamic saved selection script might include "Select the last three Months", while the script for a static saved selection might have "Select February 1996, March 1996, and April 1996".


Acronym for Extended Binary-Coded Decimal Interchange Code.


The boundary of an object.


A display box on the Layout Editor tool palette that shows the current settings for the edge, fill, and text patterns and colors.


A work area in which you perform a specific set of tasks, such as creating a program unit or designing an application.


A thing of significance about which you may need to record information.  Elements are described by attributes and associations to other elements.


Any element held in the dictionary is classified as being of a particular type.  Examples of element type are entity, attribute, program module, table, diagram, text, softbox.  Occurrences or instances of these are called elements.


(Oracle Express) Displays a dialog box related to the task you are performing, usually so you can select one or more values that you need.


An interface element state that means that a menu item, button, etc., can be used in the current context, that is, it responds to keyboard or cursor/mouse input.


An object that contains another object.  An object is considered to be enclosed by another object only if all of the following are true:  both objects belong to the same region (Body, Margin, Header, or Trailer);  the outermost of the two objects is a frame or repeating frame;  the outermost of the two objects is behind the other object;  the innermost of the two objects lies entirely within the borders of the other object.


The practice of scrambling (encrypting) data in such a way that only an intended recipient can unscramble (decrypt) and read the data.


The user's computer-based workplace, including the tools typically used and their configurations. For Project Builder, this refers to the subset of tools that are used to complete various tasks related to developing Forms Developer applications.


A warming or error condition generated from a PL/SQL subprogram.


(Oracle Express) A Selector dialog box tool that allows the user to select dimension values associated with data that meets cutoff terms that the user specifies. For example, the user can select all products whose dollar sales were greater than $10,000 for the week ending December 23, 1995 in the Boston market.


An argument you can pass to a product executable, such as 'OPENFILE=my_disp' and 'PRINT=YES'.  These arguments usually are specified when the executable is invoked from a command line.


See run.


To store a copy of an object, module, selected text or image to a file or database.  In Project Builder, the process of writing out a file containing project, type, action, and/or macro definitions in a portable format for distribution to others who may work on heterogeneous platforms.  See also:  export file, import.


In Project Builder, the shareable, portable file created by exporting a project.


1. A PL/SQL construct combining variables, constants, literals, and operations on their values.
2. (Oracle Express) One or more data values that are specified in an Express language program. For example, you can specify expressions as arguments to programs or functions. An expression can be any of the following:

•	A single, literal value (for example, 10)

•	A variable or formula that contains one or more values

•	A function that returns one or more values

•	A calculation that combines values, such as variables, formulas, or functions, with arithmetic or Boolean operators


See library.


An ANSI-standard SQL SELECT statement that can be referenced by other Oracle products.


(Oracle Express) A group of related dimension values that correspond to the levels of the dimension hierarchy. Dimension values within a family can relate to each other as ancestor, parent, child, and descendant.  The following example shows family relationships for the dimension value "France" in the GEOGRAPHY dimension.


(Oracle Express) A Selector dialog box tool that allows the user to select a family of dimension values for a particular hierarchy. A family includes a parent and all of its descendant dimension values. For example, the user can select all of the family members below the Chicago market level in the Geography dimension.


1. An interface element in which you enter, edit, or delete data.  2. In Graphics Builder or Report Builder, a layout object that define how the data for a specific query column appears.


In Graphics Builder, a collection of attributes and properties that determines how dependent data (values) are represented as chart fields, such as bars or lines.


In Project Builder, a node in the Project Navigator denoting a file stored in the file system.  For example, the global and local registry nodes correspond to global and local registry files.


The area within an object to which a fill (color or pattern) should be applied.


A PL/SQL function or anonymous function that restricts the data displayed by a group.


A computer that regulates access to computers on a local area network from outside, and regulates access to outside computers from within the local area network.


See deconstructed object.


Layout Editor mode that automatically resizes or shrinks parent objects when child objects are moved or resized, and adjusts the positions of other layout objects that might otherwise be affected by the repositioning or resizing of the objects.


The state of an entity that is able to respond to input from the user or the client.  If an entity has the keyboard focus, it can receive events when the user presses a key.  If a drawn view has the drawing focus, it can respond to client routines that affect drawing.


The black part of a pattern.  You apply color to the foreground element using the Edge Color palette.


A value or column in one table that refers to a primary key in another table.


In Report Builder, a default layout style in which labels appear to the left of fields, and each record prints on a separate logical page.


In Report Builder, a default layout style that intermixes boilerplate and fields, wrapping lines at "word" breaks.


(Field Properties)  A setting that defines the appearance of the value of a field.  For example, a format mask is used to specify the display of currency amounts and dates.


A PL/SQL function that allows you to dynamically change the formatting attributes of an object.


(Oracle Express) A type of database object that represents a stored calculation, expression, or procedure that produces a value. A formula provides a way to define and save complex or frequently used relationships within the data without resaving the data itself. Each time you use a formula, Express performs the calculation or procedure that is required to produce the value.


A user-created column that gets its data from a PL/SQL function or expression, a user exit, a SQL statement, or any combination of these.


In Graphics Builder, the part of a chart template that defines the basic structure of a chart, but does not determine the way the data is plotted.
2. In Report Builder, a layout object used to enclose other layout objects and control the formatting, frequency, and positioning of several objects simultaneously.


A PL/SQL subprogram that performs a specified sequence of actions, and then returns a value.  Can reside and execute on the client and the database server.


To save an application to a file or database in a binary format that can be executed by Runtime and Batch executables.


The Form Builder executable used to save an application to a file or database in a binary format.


A Project Builder registry that stores information common to an entire Forms Developer or Reports Developer installation.  This information is restricted to type definitions, and their associated actions and pre-defined or user-defined properties.  The use of the Global Registry is optional; its functions can be performed by individual user registries.  See also: registry, user registry.


A logical container that exists across an application.  When an application uses a global variable, the application maintains the variable until the application is exited, or until another object explicitly removes it.


To give a user access to a module.  Only a module's creator can grant its access to other users.


In Graphics Builder, the lines that separate rows and columns in the Layout Editor.


1. An object that is composed of several other objects.
2. In Report Builder, a data model object that is created automatically to contain all the columns selected by a query, or created by the user to modify the hierarchy of the data appearing in a report;  it is used primarily for creating breaks in a report, as well as for resetting computations.
3. In Project Builder, collections of related items available via submenus off the Launcher.  Groups allow users to set up the Launcher much like the Windows 95 Start menu, with arbitrary "groups" as entries that pop up to reveal other items and/or groups.  For example, a user could define a group named "Project Docs", containing a project schedule, to-do list, component specifications, etc.; some files may be .TXT files, other .DOC files.


A PL/SQL function that restricts the data fetched by a group.


A hierarchical model-similar to a "family tree"-that describes the relationships between group objects and the objects that compose them.


Acronym for graphical user interface. The use of pictures rather than just words to represent the input and output of a program.  Programs with GUIs run under a windowing system (such as  X Windows, Microsoft Windows, Apple Macintosh, and so on).  GUI programs display icons, buttons, and so on, in windows on the screen;  users control the GUI programs mainly by moving a pointer on the screen (typically controlled by a mouse).  Also known as a bitmapped interface.


An internal pointer to an application object.  In order to reference an object in a PL/SQL program unit, you must pass its handle as an argument to the appropriate subprogram.


An optional report region that can contain introductory material for the report, including text, graphics, data, and computations.  The report header appears first, before the body and trailer.


A node in the Object Navigator denoting a type of object which can be contained within or associated with a report.  Selecting a heading node does not select an object in the report.


(Field Properties)  A property that specifies whether Report Builder will suppress the indicated field at its location in the layout.  If Hidden is specified, the field's value will appear only where referenced in text objects (using &fieldname).


(Oracle Express) A means of organizing and structuring data. A hierarchy exists when values within a dimension are arranged in levels, with each level representing the aggregated total of the data from the level below. Some dimensions have multiple hierarchies based on them.

The following example shows a hierarchy based on the GEOGRAPHY dimension, in which dimension values are arranged in five levels. Data at the Customers level is aggregated into the Cities level, which, in turn, is aggregated into the Countries/Areas, Continents/Regions, and Global levels.


Acronym for Hypertext Markup Language.  A tag-based ASCII language used to specify the content and links to other documents on Web servers on the Internet.  End users with Web browsers view HTML documents and follow links to display other documents.


Acronym for Hypertext Transfer Protocol. The protocol used to carry WWW traffic between a WWW browser computer and the WWW server being accessed.


A reference (link) from some point in one document to (some point in) another document or another place in the same document.  A Web browser usually displays a hyperlink in some distinguishing way (in a different color, font or style).  When users activate hyperlinks (by clicking on them with a mouse) the browser displays the target of the link.


A collection of documents containing cross-references which, with the aid of a Web browser, allow readers to move easily from one document to another.


Cross-references which, with the aid of a Web browser, allow readers to move easily from one document to another.


Acronym for interface C definition-a PL/SQL application programming interface to functionality implemented in C.


A graphic representation of a window or tool.


A bitmapped object that can be stored and loaded into an application.  The client cannot modify an imported image.


In Project Builder, a project item, usually the result of automatic generation, that Project Builder recognizes and for which it automatically creates entries in the Project Navigator.  For example, Project Builder can recognize .OBJ files, generated as an intermediate step during the compilation of C source files, and create entries for them in the Project Navigator.  Although resetting the properties of an implied item is of limited use (the next compilation will destroy changes) such items can be useful, as they can be examined via actions such as Edit, View, and Print.  See also: item, action.


1. To read a module from the file system or database, and incorporate it into an application.
2. To read in a file containing project information.


A piece of data that does not depend on other data for its value.  For example, an employee's name may have the value Jones, which is independent of the values of other employee's names or associated data.  Also called category data.


An optional structure associated with a table that is used by Oracle Server to locate rows of the table quickly, and (optionally) to guarantee that every row is unique.


In Project Builder, to obtain information for an action, type, macro, or property definition from an ancestor node in the dependency tree.  If related attributes exist in an ancestor node, they may be inherited.  Thus, filesystem items like forms and documents may inherit action definitions from subprojects, projects, the user registry, or the Global Registry; projects may inherit type definitions from the local or the Global Registry; and so on.


The virtual rectangle that constitutes an object's ideal shape and connects its four control points, regardless of edge thickness or other attribute settings.


The file used to build a target: for instance, an .FMB is the input for an .FMX.  Also called source.


A mode in which each character you enter is inserted at the cursor, pushing the following characters to the right.  The opposite of replace mode.


A worldwide TCP/IP-based network of computers.


A file containing any mixture of PL/SQL source, Procedure Builder commands, and SQL statements.


An internal TCP/IP network, access to which is restricted (via a firewall) to individuals inside the company or organization.  An intranet provides similar services within an organization to those provided by the Internet, but is not necessarily connected to the Internet.  A common example of an intranet is when a company sets up one or more Web servers on an internal network for distribution of information or applications within the company.


A four-part number with no more than three digits in each part that uniquely identifies a computer on the Internet.


In Project Builder, an object in the file system associated with the project, such as a form or a document, pointed to or represented by a node in the Project Navigator.


In Project Builder, an entry in the Project Navigator window, consisting of an icon and a descriptive title.  Nodes point to actual items in the filesystem, such as Form Builder files and documents.  See also: node, item.


Acronym for Java ARchive.  A file used for aggregating many files (Java class files, images, and so on)  into one file.


A computer language that supports programming for the Internet in the form of platform-independent "applets".


Combining data from two (or more) tables in a single SELECT statement.


  See alignment.


1. Part of a command line syntax that must be supplied with a corresponding argument.  2. A required part of a PL/SQL construct.


Text identifying the values or meaning of an application's visual objects.


(Oracle Express) A position in a dimension hierarchy. Each level above the base level represents the aggregated total of the data from the level below. For example, the TIME dimension might have ascending levels such as Month, Quarter, and Year. Within a dimension hierarchy, a dimension value at one level has a family relationship with the dimension values at the levels above and below that level.


(Oracle Express) A Selector dialog box tool that allows the user to select dimension values based on their level in a particular hierarchy. For example, the user can select all of the dimension values at the Key Account level in the Geography dimension.


The area of an editor in which you can create, modify, position, or delete objects.


A unit of measurement for ensuring a consistent measurement system across different display devices.  Used to specify a position on the layout, or the dimensions of an object.


A reference to a parameter used to represent a string of text in a SQL SELECT statement.  For a lexical reference, you must precede the parameter name with an ampersand (&).


A collection of one or more PL/SQL program units that are stored together in a file on the client file system or in the database.  Program units stored in a library can be referenced by several applications at once.  Unlike stored program units, which reside and execute in the database, program units in libraries always load and execute within the PL/SQL engine on the client side.  To reference program units that are stored in a library, you must first attach the library.  See also:  attached library.


A data model object used to define a master/detail (parent-child) relationship between a group and a query.


The name of a file to which a boilerplate object is associated.  At runtime, Report Builder imports the file's contents into your report layout.


A list of items within a dialog box.  Usually, the list box offers choices for selection, and it is scrollable.


In Form Builder, an item that displays a list of choices.


Also called LOV. A scrollable popup window that provides the user with a single or multi-column selection list.


(Oracle Express) A Selector dialog box tool that allows you to select dimension values from a list of the currently selected values in the dimension.


1. The database on the computer running the application.  2. The database to which an application is connected.  This database parses and executes all SQL statements generated by the application.


See user registry.


A PL/SQL variable declared only within the scope of the current program unit.


(Oracle Express)

Not	Unary Not -- Operand can be integer or long. The operation is performed bitwise (one's complement).

And	And -- Operands can be integer or long. The operation is performed bitwise.

Or	Inclusive Or -- Operands can be integer or long. The operation is performed bitwise.

Xor	Exclusive Or -- Operands can be integer or long. The operation is performed bitwise.

Eqv	Equivalence -- Operands can be integer or long. The operation is performed bitwise. (A Eqv B) is the same as (Not (A Xor B)).

Imp	Implication -- Operands can be integer or long. The operation is performed bitwise. (A Imp B) is the same as ((Not A) OR B).


One page of your actual report (it may be displayed on one or more physical pages).


In a PL/SQL subprogram, a conditional statement that is repeated until the condition is no longer met.


In Project Builder, a type-specific variable that may be used to customize and extend actions.  A macro may be either a constant or a simple expression (which, in turn, may contain other constants and/or expressions).  The use of macros adds great flexibility in issuing command options, and in allowing the user to modify sets of commands by changing one property definition.


A default layout that displays records in one or more columns on the page.  Fields appear directly beneath each other in a single repeating frame.


An optional report region that appears at the top and bottom of each logical page in the body region.  The margin may include any layout object, but typically contains boilerplate and fields (for page numbers, page totals, grand totals, and current date and time).


A default layout in which the detail records appear below the master records.  Master records appear in form layout style, while detail records appear in tabular layout style.


(Oracle Express) A Selector dialog box tool that allows the user to select dimension values by matching characters in dimension value names to characters that the user specifies. For example, the user can select all dimension values in the Product dimension at the Brand level that contain the characters "new."


A repeat direction that displays each record of a repeating frame as a cell of a matrix.


A default layout, resembling a grid, that formats the four sets of data necessary for a matrix report; one set of data displays as a row of labels, one as a column of labels, one set creates the grid, and one set fills the cells of the grid.


A cross-tabulation of four sets of data:  one set of data displays across the page; one set of data displays down the page; one set of data is the cross-product, determining all possible locations in which the across and down data relate and placing a cell in those locations; and one set of data displays as the "filler" of the cells.


(Oracle Express) Data that can be examined and analyzed, such as sales or cost data. You can select and display the data in a measure. Measures can be stored as variables or relations, or measures can be calculated by means of formulas.


A unit of memory equal to 1,048,576 bytes (1024 x 1024). Often rounded to one million bytes.


A modal window that notifies you of a condition that occurred because of your last action.  You must respond to a message box.


Executable code attached to an Oracle8 object through its object type definition.


A window that elicits a response from the operator before the application can continue.


An unrestricted window that can have as much functionality as the runtime window manager can support.


1. An object that can be shared by multiple applications.  External queries and PL/SQL libraries are examples of modules.  2. In Form Builder, a major component of an application (i.e., a menu module).


A field in a window or dialog that extends for several lines, allowing you to scroll vertically through the information.


(Oracle Express) A special data value that indicates that data is "not available" (NA). NA is the value of any cell to which a specific data value has not been assigned or for which data cannot be calculated.


Matrix report in which either the across and/or down dimension contains one or more master/detail relationships.  There is no limit to the amount of nesting allowed.


A datatype indicating that the data will be fetched when the page on which it appears is formatted (instead of fetched and cached until formatted).


1.  A specific location in the Object Navigator object hierarchy.  Nodes can be expanded to reveal information about an object, such as cross references to other objects.  2.  In Project Builder, an entry in the Project Navigator.  See also:  item, item node, organization node.


A report column that references a database column of datatype NOCACHE.


The absence of a value.


(Oracle Express)

^	Exponentiation,

-,+	Unary minus and plus,

*, /	Numeric multiplication or division. For division, the result is a double.

\	Integer division. The operands can be integer or long.

Mod	Modulus or Remainder. The operands can be integer or long,

-, +	Numeric addition and subtraction. The + operator can also be used for string concatenation.


1.  An item that can be placed on the layout.  The following are examples of objects:  rectangle, line, ellipse, arc, polygon, polyline, rounded rectangle, freehand, chart, text, symbol, and text field.  2.  In Oracle8, an instance of an object type.  An object can be a row in an object table, or the portion of a row contained in a column object in a relational table.


See column object.


A container for a group of objects, used to provide the ability to copy or reference related objects.


See handle.


The window containing a hierarchical list of objects for the current session.  The list appears in outline form, and enables the user to accomplish several tasks such as creating, editing, renaming, and deleting objects.


In Oracle8, a table whose definition is based on an object type.  Each attribute in the object type becomes a column in the object table.  Each row in the table is an individual Oracle8 object.


In Oracle8, a user-supplied definition or template, upon which objects can be built.  An object type is a composite, whose parts are attributes.  Each attribute has a name and a datatype, and the object type as a whole has a name.  An object type may also include one or more methods.


Acronym for Open Database Connectivity.  A standard for accessing different database systems.  An application can submit statements to ODBC using the ODBC flavor of SQL.  ODBC then translates these to whatever flavor the database understands.  Using the Oracle Open Client Adapter (OCA), an application can access different database management systems in one consistent manner.  This allows an application developer to develop, compile, and ship an application without targeting a specific DBMS.


Object Linking and Embedding.


An application that can store and display OLE objects.


An application that creates OLE objects.


See built-in datatype.


An environment variable that indicates the root directory of Oracle products.


An entry in the Project Navigator, such as "Types", "Projects", "Form Files", etc., used to help organize the Navigator and indicate the filetypes of child items.  It may also correspond to a data structure within certain types of filesystem objects.


Represented in x and y coordinates.  The origin of a view indicates the location of the view on its parent's canvas.  The origin of a canvas indicates the position of drawing on a drawn view.


The smallest virtual rectangle that completely surrounds an object.


When an object's contents cannot fit on the current logical page.  In the event of overflow, some of the contents are moved to the next logical page.


A PL/SQL function provided with the software that can be referenced anywhere within a program unit.


A method of encapsulating and storing related procedures, functions, variables, and other package constructs together as a unit in the database or on the client.  While packages provide the database administrator or application developer organizational benefits, they also offer increased functionality and database performance.  The software provides several built-in packages which contain PL/SQL constructs that can be referenced by client-side program units (e.g., TEXT_IO package).  Several packages are also supplied with the Oracle database server for referencing by stored program units (e.g., DBMS_OUTPUT package).


Includes the actual implementation of the package, which may include private subprograms and datatypes.  The body is optional if the package consists only of declarations.


Declares the public interface to the package-that is, the datatypes and subprograms that can be referenced by other program units.


(Oracle Express) 1. A slice of data included in a report. Additional pages display additional slices of data.

The following figure shows three pages of data.

2. In Express, a page can also refer to a unit of storage in an Express database.


(Oracle Express) A representation of how data selected for a query will appear in your spreadsheet. The page layout shows three edges -- Across, Down, and Page. The edges indicate how the multi-dimensional datacube defined by the query will appear in the two-dimensional spreadsheet. Dimension tiles display the names and positions of the dimensions. A dimension tile on the Across edge indicates that this dimension will appear as a column. A dimension tile on the Down edge indicates that this dimension will appear as a row. A dimension on the Page edge indicates that this dimension will appear in a page box at the top of the results.


A setting that controls whether to move the current object and its children to the next logical page.  You can set page breaks to occur before or after the current object appears in the report output.


An interface element that displays tools, colors, or patterns available in an editor.


A distinct portion of an editor where work is performed, usually resizeable.


The number of physical pages needed to print one logical page.


1. A PL/SQL construct used to pass information to a subprogram.  For example, in the subprogram call MYPROC (x),x is a parameter.  2. In Forms Developer, parameters are used to pass information between components such as Form Builder and Graphics Builder.  3. A variable you can change at runtime.


A group of parameter names and associated values used to pass information between Forms Developer components.


1. An object that is immediately above another object in its group tree.  A group object is the parent to each of the objects that compose it.  Every object is the parent of its children.
2. (Oracle Express) A dimension value at the level immediately above a particular value in a hierarchy. The parent value is the aggregated total of the values of its children.  The following example shows the dimension value "France" as the parent of "Lyon" and "Paris" in the GEOGRAPHY dimension.


To place the contents of the Clipboard (cut or copied objects) at the current cursor location.


A graphical property you can apply to the edge or fill of most objects.


The machine code or instruction list for a compiled program unit.


Acronym for Portable Document Format.  A file format (native for Adobe Acrobat) for representing documents in a manner that is independent of the original application software, hardware, and operating system used to create the documents.  A PDF file can describe documents containing any combination of text, graphics, and images in a device-independent and resolution independent format.


The size of a page that is output by your printer.


The type of element used to plot a field on a chart, such as bar, line, or symbol.


Oracle's proprietary extension to the SQL language.  Adds procedural and other constructs to SQL that make it suitable for writing applications.


A Procedure Builder Interpreter script file.


A PL/SQL library file that contains source code and compiled code. The file can be opened in Procedure Builder for editing.


A text file that contains the PL/SQL source of a single program unit.


A runtime PL/SQL library file that contains executable code only.  The file cannot be opened in Procedure Builder for editing.


A list that pops up when the user performs a particular action.


A number that TCP uses to route transmitted data to and from a particular program.


An action shipped with Project Builder and automatically available to the user via a menu item and/or a toolbar button.  Pre-defined actions include Build, Deliver, and several source control options.  When a pre-defined action is defined for a supported file type, the action is invoked for any selected item of that type when the user calls the action from Project Builder.  See also:  action, user-defined action.


See built-in datatype.


A setting that affects the behavior of the application's interface.


(Oracle Express) View the script that would be generated if you accept the current criteria. In the dialog box for any Selector tool you can preview your selection by choosing the Preview button.


The interface with which you view and scroll through report output online.


A column in a database table whose members consist of unique values that can be used to identify a row in a table.


See built-in datatype.


In a printer definition file, an escape sequence to which you assign a printer code that can be referenced in a report.


A file that contains a printer definition in text (e.g., ASCII or EBCDIC) format.


A PL/SQL subprogram that performs a specified sequence of actions. .  Can reside and execute on the client and the database server.


A PL/SQL code structure that can be independently recognized and processed by the PL/SQL compiler.  Anonymous blocks, subprogram specifications and bodies (procedures and functions), and package specifications and bodies are types of program units.  Program units can reside and execute on the client and the database server.  See also:  stored program unit.


The basic data structure created by Project Builder.  Projects are collections of pointers to all the files you consider part of your application, or otherwise want to group together conceptually.  You can define the editors, compilers, and other tools you use to work with the items contained within a project.  All project information is stored within a project registry.  See also:  project item, project file, export.


In Project Builder, project files are all the files associated with an application.  Project files can be of any type, including forms, reports, displays, 3GL modules, documentation, and test scripts. See also:  project, project item.


In Project Builder, anything for which properties may be defined, including all entities stored under the Projects node, types, actions, and macros. See also: project, project file.


The window containing a hierarchical list of project items for the current session.  The list appears in outline form, and enables the user to accomplish several tasks such as creating, editing, renaming, and deleting objects.  Although only one is visible at any time, the user can choose from two different schema by which to organize the objects.


The top-level node for a project.  It represents or points to the project file.  See also: project, project file.


In Project Builder, the file that stores all the information associated with a project:  files belonging to the project, types, actions, and macros defined for the project, and so on.


The project view shows objects organized by their type, and by their project/subproject relationships.  The projects are organized alphabetically by project file, then alphabetically by category.  See also:  dependency view, project, project file, view.


A dialog that assists the user in accomplishing the steps necessary to create a new project or sub project.


A characteristic of an object that determines the behavior or appearance of that object.


A named object that contains a list of properties and their settings used to globally control the appearance and functionality of objects based on that class.


A string you can enter when connecting to a database or server that allows you to connect to a remote database or server.


(Oracle Express) When you select values for one of the dimensions in a measure, the other dimensions that make up that measure are known as qualifying dimensions.

Suppose your Sales measure is dimensioned by Product, Month, and Geography. If you select the top ten cities based on Sales, you must also specify which product and month you want to consider when you compare Sales values. In this case, Product and Month are the qualifying dimensions.


A SQL SELECT statement that specifies the data you wish to retrieve from one or more tables or views of a database.


A PL/SQL function that, when executed, filters data retrieved by a query.  Only the data that meet the conditions in the function are charted.


An option that terminates the current session and returns the user to the operating system.  On some systems, Quit is Exit.


A control (similar to a check box), appearing in sets of two or more, only one of which may be either "on" or "off" at any given time.


A set of two or more radio buttons, only one of which may be either "on" or "off" at any given time.


(Oracle Express) A Selector dialog box tool that allows the user to select consecutive time periods as dimension values. These time periods can be based on any of the following:

•	A specific number of the most recent time periods

•	A beginning time period and a most recent time period

•	A beginning and ending time period

For example, the user can select dimension values for the range from the week ending November 25, 1996 through the week ending December 30, 1996.


A cipher designed by RSA Data Security, Inc. which can accept keys of arbitrary length, and is essentially a pseudo random number generator with the output of the generator being XORed with the data stream to produce the encrypted data.  For this reason, it is very important that the same RC4 key never be used to encrypt two different data streams.


Acronym for Relational Database Management System.  A database that allows the definition of data structures, storage and retrieval operations, and integrity constraints.  In such a database, data and relations between them are organized in tables.


A file that contains a single report definition in binary format.  .RDF files are used to both run and edit reports.


A file that contains a single report definition in binary format.  .rep files are used solely to run reports; you cannot edit a .rep file.


The ability to query the data throughout a database as of a single point in time.


One row fetched by a SQL SELECT statement.


An internal data structure object with a column/row framework, that belong to the form module in which they are defined.


A type of column that points to data in other column objects or object tables (Oracle8).


A line that appears at a specified value on a chart.


(Oracle Express) Fetch the most recent data from an Express database after query results are displayed in your report. When you open a saved Express query, the results are refreshed automatically.


To add the definition of a type or a new project to either the global or local registry.  Upon being registered, a new type can have actions defined for it, while a new project can have its referenced files identified as specific types, so that actions can be invoked against them.  See also:  registry.


A global and/or user-specific configuration file used to store project definitions and environment information.  See also:  Global Registry, user registry.


A symbol used in search criteria to indicate a comparison between two values, such as the equal sign in "WHERE DEPTNO = 10." Rows in which the comparison results in "true" are returned in the result (fetched), while rows in which the comparison returns "false" are rejected from the result.


A database on a computer other than the local database.  Usually a computer on the same network, but at a different node (i.e., a database that you use through a database link).


A layout object used to display rows of data that are fetched for a group.


A mode in which each character you type replaces the current character at the cursor.  The opposite of insert mode.


The objects that are used to define a report's data model and layout.  Report-level objects are assigned to a single report, and cannot be shared by other reports or other Oracle products. Objects include reports, queries, external queries, external PL/SQL libraries, groups, columns, parameters, links, frames, repeating frames, fields, boilerplate, and anchors.


Available on Windows NT and Windows 95 only, waits for any command lines to run a report, then places that report in its queue to run in the background on the local server.  Typically command lines are received from Form Builder or Graphics Builder via RUN_PRODUCT, or from another report via SRW.RUN_REPORT.  You can also use RWISV60 to submit a report to the Reports Background Engine.


Maintains timestamp and status information about reports managed by the Reports Server.


Available on Windows NT, Windows 95, and UNIX, enables running reports on a remote server.  Queues job requests and allows you to schedule when to run reports.  Use RWCLI60 to send a report to the Reports Server.


Provides an interface between your Web Server and Reports Runtime, enabling you to run reports dynamically from your Web browser.


Provides a connection between a Web Server and the Reports Server.


A file that contains a report definition stored in text (e.g., ASCII or EBCDIC) format.  .REX files are used to port reports from one platform to another. Note that .REX files are no longer required. They are available for backward compatibility.


Refers to the intensities of the red, green, and blue components of a color.


The group object to which all other objects in an application belong.


Top-level node for a project representing user's environment.  May correspond to the user registry or the Global Registry, depending on which registry has been chosen to set defaults.


1. One set of field values in a table; for example, the fields representing one employee in the example table EMP.  2.  To generate a runtime version of an application.


An object in an Oracle8 object table.  Each row in the table is an object.  However, in Forms Developer an object table is deconstructed into individual columns, so that the row object no longer exists as a single entity (only as its separate attributes).


To execute a runtime version of an application or program unit.


Acronym for Rich Text Format.  A non-platform-specific file format based on control words used to represent unformatted text and images in various applications and operating systems.  RTF uses the ANSI, PC-8, Macintosh, or IBM PC character set to control the representation and formatting of a document, both on the screen and in print.


See rep file.


The interface in which users view and interact with a runtime application.


A screen or window appearing optionally at runtime in which a user can modify print options and parameters prior to report execution.


(Oracle Express) A set of dimension values that has been saved either as a list of values or as a script. You can save selections that you build, or your database administrator can create saved selections and make them available to you.

Saved selections are a time-saving feature: each time that you need to re-use a selection, you can simply retrieve a saved selection without having to recreate it.


(Oracle Express) A Selector tool that allows you to retrieve a selection of dimension values that has been saved.


A collection of related database objects, usually grouped by database userid.  Schema objects includes tables, views, sequences, stored program units, synonyms, indexes, clusters, and database links.


The level at, or range in which, an object operates.  For Project Builder:  1.  Describes the range of files affected by Compile and Compile All commands invoked against compilable project items.  2:  Describes the range of files influenced by inheritable definitions.


See SQL script, Interpreter script.


In Report Builder, one of multiple layouts in the same report, each with a different target audience, output format, page layout, page size, or orientation.  For example, a single report can include an executive summary for senior management in one section and also a detailed breakdown for  individual managers in another section.


A SQL statement that specifies which rows and columns to fetch from one or more tables or views.


(Oracle Express) The set of dimension values currently chosen for a dimension, or the script that contains conditions or criteria to specify those values.


(Oracle Express) As shown on various dialog boxes in the Selector, a description of the choices that a user has made in selecting dimension values. It is a translation, in ordinary language, of the Express Language script.


(Oracle Express) A set of tools that you use to choose the dimension values to include, for instance, in a report, table, graph, or dimension list box. For example, you can use the Selector to choose the top 10 cities based on Sales or those cities whose Sales exceeded Quota by 15 percent. The Selector also allows you to sort dimension values and to create and retrieve saved selections.


(Oracle Express) A dialog box or group of dialog boxes that provides a particular way of selecting or sorting dimension values. Each Selector tool is part of the Selector. You can use Selector tools to select dimension values based on their level in the hierarchy, their attributes, the characters in the value name, and so on. You can also use Selector tools to sort the dimension values.


The period between invoking and quitting the executable.


One of two or more objects that have the same parent object in its group tree.  All objects that belong to one group object are siblings.


The combination of an IP address and a port number.


(Oracle Express) A Selector dialog box tool that allows you to rearrange the order of dimension values in a displayed selection. You can sort a selection in ascending or descending order by the following:

•	Alphabet

•	Order in the database

•	Data value

•	Order or level in the hierarchy

•	Time period

You can also sort a selection manually, by dragging and dropping dimension values.


In PL/SQL:  Statements provided in a subprogram or package.  You must have the source code for a program unit before you can compile it into executable form.  In Project Builder:  The input types required to build target types.


Defines only the names, parameters, and return type (applies to functions only) of the subprogram.


A small rectangle at the bottom of the vertical scrollbar and to the left of the horizontal scrollbar in an editor.  Dragging and releasing the mouse button creates a new pane, and divides the scroll bar into separate scroll bars for each pane.


A standard interface for storing and retrieving information in a relational database.  SQL is an acronym for Structured Query Language.


A that contains a query stored in text (e.g., ASCII or EBCDIC) format.


A file containing SQL statements that you can run to perform database administration quickly and easily.  Several SQL scripts are shipped with Oracle products.


A SQL instruction to Oracle.  A SELECT statement is one type of SQL statement.


See call stack.


A PL/SQL construct used for conditional, iterative, and sequential control, and for error handling.  A semi-colon (;) must terminate every PL/SQL statement.


(Oracle Express) A saved selection that contains the same dimension values every time it is evaluated. Static saved selections list the dimension values that are to be selected, rather than the selection criteria. For example, a static saved selection script might include "Select February 1996, March 1996, and April 1996", while the script for a dynamic saved selection might have "Select the last three Months".


A procedure, function, or package that resides and executes in the Oracle database server.


A procedure or function that resides and executes in the Oracle database server.


HTML extensions that provide powerful formatting flexibility in HTML documents.  To view an HTML document that takes advantage of style sheets, display it in a browser that supports style sheets.


A PL/SQL procedure or function.


In Project Builder, a project contained within another project file, rather than being stored in its own file.  See also:  project.


In Project Builder, a node denoting a subproject.  See also:  project, project node, subproject node.


A column, with a type of summary, which computes subtotals, grand totals, running totals, and other summaries of the data in a report, using one of the packaged summary functions provided by Report Builder.


The file format used by the Microsoft Excel program.


The orderly system by which commands, qualifiers, and parameters are combined to form valid command strings.


One of the variables that are provided with Reports Developer (e.g., &Logical Page, DESTYPE).


A named collection of related information, stored in a relational database or server, in a two-dimensional grid that is made up of rows and columns.


A collection type, which defines a data unit made up of an unordered set of elements, all of the same data type.  The corresponding data unit is a single column nested table, the column type of which is a built-in type or an object type.  (Oracle8)


A default layout displaying labels at the top of the page and rows of data underneath the labels.


In Project Builder, any item in the middle of the dependency tree; for example, an executable is a (compile) target for a library; while a library is a target for a group of objects; and an object is a target for a source file.


A node denoting a target.  See also: target.


Acronym for Transmission Control Protocol. The underlying communication protocol for exchanging HTTP requests between clients and Web servers.


A submenu that the user can remove from its source using a mouse or other pointing device and drag to another part of the display screen.


In Form Builder, an item that displays a character string value.


The horizontal area at the top of a window that displays the name of the application or interface element in that window.


See header.


To turn a setting alternately on or off.  For example, you can hide or show the Object Navigator.


An iconic button used to create and manipulate objects in an application.


Collection of iconic buttons that perform product commands.  Usually aligned horizontally along the top, or vertically down the side of a window.


A collection of tools.


(Oracle Express) A Selector dialog box tool that allows the user to select dimension values based on the top x, bottom y, or top x and bottom y data values. For example, the user can produce a dimension selection that contains products whose Volume Sales were among the top 10 percent of products in the Total U.S. for the four-week time period ending December 30, 1995.


A optional report region that can contain closing material for the report, including text, graphics, data, and computations.  The report trailer appears last, following the header and body.


A sequence of SQL statements treated as a single unit.


A PL/SQL procedure that is executed, or "fired," upon a specific event.


A description of a file type, such as a form, a document, etc., containing such information as type name and description. Each description applies to a single file type.  In addition, there are four meta-types: "updtext", which applies to all text files, “updproj” which applies to all project files, “updlink”, which applies to all project links, and "all" which applies to any file type.  Types are the foundation for defining actions and macros.


To change the values for table data, in particular, by altering data values using the SQL command UPDATE, but also by deleting values using the SQL command DELETE or by inserting values using the command INSERT.


Acronym for Uniform Resource Locator. The "address" used to specify a WWW server and home page.  For example:
http://www.acme.com/
which indicates that the host's address is www.acme.com. An URL most often is a filename (possibly with a long path to it and usually with an extension of .HTML, or .HTM (for PC-DOS filenames).


A way in which to pass control (and possibly arguments) from Forms Developer to another Oracle product or 3GL, and then return control (and possibly arguments) back to Forms Developer.


A custom action defined by a Project Builder user.  Such actions may apply to any single file type, or to all file types.  See also:  action, pre-defined action.


See object type.


A custom macro defined by a Project Builder user.  Such macros may be used to modify both built-in actions and user-defined actions.  See also:: macro, built-in macro, action, pre-defined action.


A project file storing configuration information on a per-user basis.  This enables users to customize their individual development environments.  The user registry inherits type information from the Global Registry, and may define new types as well as override aspects of type definitions stored in the Global Registry.  It also stores environment and preference information, such as the user's preferred connection string, UI settings such as "Display Toolbar" and certain general project information such as "Author."  See also:  registry, Global Registry.


See continuous axis.


A PL/SQL code structure that returns a value.  Value constructs include functions and expressions.


A named object that can be assigned a value and whose assigned value may change over time.


A collection type, which defines a data unit made up of an ordered set of elements, all of the same datatype.  The corresponding data unit is a varying array or VARRAY.  The number of elements in a VARRAY (size) is variable.  However, you must specify a maximum size when you declare a varying array type.


Visual Basic extension.  Used as the file extension for special dynamic link libraries distributed on files that contain predefined VBX controls.


A widget, built with the Microsoft Visual Basic language, used to enhance the user interface, obtain user input, and display output  (e.g. sliders, grids, and control knobs).


A virtual table whose rows do not actually exist in the database, but which is based on a table that is physically stored in the database.


A directory mnemonic (essentially a shortcut or synonym) that the virtual file system uses to map files stored in the file system on the host machine.


A mapping that associates the pathnames used in URL to the file system maintained by the host machine's operating system.


The font, color, and pattern properties that you set for objects that appear in your application interface.


See WWW.


A program that end users utilize to read HTML documents and programs stored on a computer (serviced by a Web server).


A program executed on a Web server via the Web Request Broker.


A server process (HTTP daemon) running at a Web site which sends out Web pages in response to HTTP requests from remote Web browsers.


A character used to mean 'any one character' or 'a contiguous set of characters' within a word or phase.


1. A rectangular area of the desktop that contains an application.  Each window has an area where you can interact with the application.  Windows can be opened, resized, moved, reduced to an icon, or enlarged to fill the entire desktop.  2. In Form Builder, an object type you can associate with a canvas view.


The file format used by some spreadsheet programs, such as SQL*Calc, or by Lotus 1-2-3 programs.


Acronym for Oracle Web Request Broker.  Provides a powerful distributed runtime environment for developing and deploying applications for the Web.  The WRB runtime platform enables application developers to write applications that are independent of, and work with a number of, Web servers.


Acronym for World Wide Web.  The network of servers on the Internet, each of which has one or more home pages, which provide information and links to other documents on that and (usually) other servers.


To expand an object to allow more room for editing the contents of the field.


The secondary toolbar docked (by default) to the left of the Project Navigator.  It provides simple organization and application launching abilities.


 the latest version of OLE controls (OCX)


XML output complying with general XML principles such as proper tagging, nesting, and the inclusion of an XML declaration, e.g. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>.


A placeholder username enables users to log on to the database using their personal username rather than the Oracle database username (e.g., $user_name@database) when running reports from a Web browser.


Extensible Markup Language -- a metalanguage using SGML to define and structure data. Report Builder supports XML output to enable Web publishing as well as electronic data exchange with third-party applications. You can also use XML to build report definitions that can be merged with other report definitions at runtime or run separately


XML output with structure and element content conforming to a document type definition (DTD). Valid XML is also well-formed.


National Language Support in Forms Developer

  Related Topics

When you design applications for international use, you want those applications to interact with users in their native language, using their specific local conventions for displaying data. Oracle’s National Language Support (NLS) includes three main layers:

•	Support for national language character encoding schemes.

•	Support for language and territory conventions.

•	Interface translation.

This combination of support at the character level, the data display level, and the interface level ensures that your applications will be usable in most European, Middle Eastern, and Asian languages, including multi-byte character encoding schemes and bidirectionality.


NLS architecture

  Related Topics

NLS architecture has two main parts:

•	language independent functions

•	language dependent data

Language-independent functions handle manipulation of data in an appropriate manner, depending on the language and territory of the runtime operator, and automatically format that data according to local date and time conventions.

Isolating the language-dependent data enables your application to deal only with translating the strings that are unique to your application.


National Language Support environment variables

  Related Topics

You can use the following parameters as environment variables to specify the language settings used by Forms Developer:

Parameter	Specifies:
NLS_CALENDAR	the calendar system used.
NLS_CREDIT	the string used to indicate a positive monetary value.
NLS_CURRENCY	the local currency symbol.
NLS_DATE_FORMAT	the default format used for dates.
NLS_DATE_LANGUAGE	the default language used for dates.
NLS_DEBIT	the string used to indicate a negative monetary value.
NLS_ISO_CURRENCY	the ISO currency symbol.
NLS_LANG	the language settings used by Forms Developer.
DEVELOPER_NLS_LANG	the language for the Forms Developer Builders.
USER_NLS_LANG	the language for the Forms Developer Runtime component.
NLS_LIST_SEPARATOR	the character used to separate items in a list.
NLS_MONETARY_CHARACTERS	the decimal character and thousands separator for monetary values.
NLS_NUMERIC_CHARACTERS	the decimal character and grouping separator for numeric values.
NLS_SORT	the type of sort used for character data.

For more information about these parameters, see the Oracle8 Reference manual.


NLS_LANG environment variable

  Examples	  Related Topics

The NLS_LANG environment variable determines the language settings used by Forms Developer.

NLS_LANG specifies:

•	the language used to display messages to the user, for example the 'Working...' message.

•	the default format masks used for dates and numbers.

•	the sorting sequence.

•	the characters that make up the character set.

The syntax of NLS_LANG is:

NLS_LANG=language_territory.charset

where:

language	specifies the language and its conventions for displaying messages and day and month names. If language is not specified, the value defaults to American.
territory	specifies the territory and its conventions for default date format, decimal character used for numbers, currency symbol, and calculation of week and day numbers. If territory is not specified, the value defaults to America.
charset	specifies the character set in which the data is represented. This should be a character set that matches your language and platform. This argument also controls the character set used for displaying messages.

For more information about NLS_LANG, see the Oracle8 Reference manual.


DEVELOPER_NLS_LANG and USER_NLS_LANG environment variables

  Examples	  Related Topics

In most cases, setting a single value for NLS_LANG will meet your needs. However, if you need to use two sets of resource and message files on the same machine at the same time, two other environment variables are available:

•	DEVELOPER_NLS_LANG specifies the language for the product's Builder.

•	USER_NLS_LANG specifies the language for the product's Runtime component.

The syntax of DEVELOPER_NLS_LANG and USER_NLS_LANG is the same as NLS_LANG.

Use these two variables, instead of the single NLS_LANG, in the following circumstances:

•	You prefer to use the Builder in English, but you are developing an application for another language.

•	You are creating an application to run in a language that uses a bidirectional character set.

•	You are creating an application to run in a language for which a local language version of the Builder is not available.

Note  If these environment variables are not specifically set, they take their default values from NLS_LANG.

For more information about NLS_LANG, see the Oracle8 Reference manual.


Setting NLS_LANG variables
Setting NLS_LANG environment variables

  Examples	  Related Topics

To set NLS_LANG environment variables:

  Define values for these variables in the same way you define other environment variables on your base operating system, keeping in mind platform-specific rules such as path length, etc.

For example, to set NLS_LANG for Microsoft Windows NT:

1	From the Start Menu choose Run.

2	Type 'regedit' and click OK to open the Registry Editor.

Note  The Windows registry is highly sensitive to changes. Only change environment variables if absolutely necessary. If you make a mistake, click Cancel and restart.

1	Expand the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE node, then expand the SOFTWARE node.

2	Click ORACLE to display the Oracle environment variables in the right panel of the Registry Editor.

3	Double-click the NLS_LANG environment variable.

4	Type the new value for NLS_LANG in the Value data text box and click OK.

Note  If you want to use any NLS feature, you must at least set NLS_LANG so that the product can locate the NLS components.


Font aliasing on Windows platforms

  Related Topics

There may be situations where you create an application with a specific font but find that a different font is being used when you run that application. You are most likely to encounter this problems when using an English font (such as MS Sans Serif or Arial) in a non-Western European environment. This occurs because Forms Developer checks to see if the character set associated with the font matches the character set specified by the language environment variable. If the two do not match, Forms Developer automatically substitutes the font with another font whose associated character set matches the character set specified by the language environment variable. This automatic substitution assures that the data being returned from the database gets displayed correctly in the application.

Note  If you enter local characters using an English font, Windows does an implicit association with another font.

There may be cases, however, where you do not want this substitution to take place. You can avoid this substitution by mapping all desired fonts to the WE8ISO8859P1 character set in the font alias file. For example, if you are unable to use the Arial font in your application, add the following line to your font alias file:

Arial.....=Arial...WE8ISO8859P1


Supported Microsoft Windows character sets

Character set name	Description
AR8MSWIN1256	MS Windows Code Page 1256 8-bit Latin/Arabic
BG8MSWIN	MS Windows 8-bit Bulgarian Cyrillic
CL8MSWIN1251	MS Windows Code Page 1251 8-bit Latin/Cyrillic
EE8MSWIN1250	MS Windows Code Page 1250 8-bit East European
EL8MSWIN1253	MS Windows Code Page 1253 8-bit Latin/Greek
ET8MSWIN923	MS Windows Code Page 923 8-bit Estonian
IW8MSWIN1255	MS Windows Code Page 1255 8-bit Latin/Hebrew
JA16SJIS	Shift-JIS 16-bit Japanese
KO16KSC5601	KSC5601 16-bit Korean
LT8MSWIN921	MS Windows Code Page 921 8-bit Lithuanian
TH8TISASCII	Thai Industrial Standard 620-2533 - ASCII 8-bit
WE8ISO8859P1	ISO 8859-1 West European
ZHS16CGB231280	CGB2312-80 16-bit Simplified Chinese
ZHT16BIG5	BIG5 16-bit Traditional Chinese


Supported Arabic display character sets

Id	Character set name	Description
61	AR8ASMO708PLUS	ASMO 708 Plus Client 8-bit Latin/Arabic
72	AR8XBASIC	EBCDIC XBASIC Client 8-bit Latin/Arabic
504	AR8NAFITHA711T	Nafitha Enhanced 711 Client 8-bit Latin/Arabic
505	AR8SAKHR707T	SAKHR 707 Client 8-bit Latin/Arabic
506	AR8MUSSAD768T	Mussa'd Alarabi/2 768 Client 8-bit Latin/Arabic
507	AR8ADOS710T	Arabic MS-DOS 710 Client 8-bit Latin/Arabic
508	AR8ADOS720T	Arabic MS-DOS 720 Client 8-bit Latin/Arabic
509	AR8APTEC715T	APTEC 715 Client 8-bit Latin/Arabic
511	AR8NAFITHA721T	Nafitha International 721 Client 8-bit Latin/Arabic
514	AR8HPARABIC8T	HP ARABIC8 Client 8-bit Latin/Arabic
567	AR8ARABICMACT	Mac Client 8-bit Latin/Arabic


Language and territory conventions

  Related Topics

While the character encoding schemes ensure that the individual characters needed for each language are available, support for national conventions provides correct localized display of data items.

The specified language determines the default conventions for the following characteristics:

•	language for server messages

•	language for day and month names and their abbreviations (specified in the SQL functions TO_CHAR and TO_DATE)

•	symbols for equivalents of AM, PM, AD, and BC

•	default sorting sequence for character data when ORDER BY is specified (GROUP BY uses a binary sort, unless ORDER BY is specified)

•	writing direction

•	affirmative/negative response strings

For example, if the language is set to French, the messages:

ORA-00942:  table or view does not exist
FRM-10043:  Cannot open file.

will appear as:

ORA-00942: table ou vue inexistante
FRM-10043: Ouverture de fichier impossible.

The specified territory determines the conventions for the following default date and numeric formatting characteristics:

•	date format

•	decimal character and group separator

•	local currency symbol

•	ISO currency symbol

•	week start day

•	credit and debit symbol

•	ISO week flag

•	list separator

For example, if the territory is set to France, numbers will be formatted using a comma as the decimal character.


Supported languages

Abbreviation	Language
us	American
ar	Arabic
bn	Bengali
ptb	Brazilian Portuguese
bg	Bulgarian
frc	Canadian French
ca	Catalan
hr	Croatian
cs	Czech
dk	Danish
nl	Dutch
eg	Egyptian
gb	English
et	Estonian
sf	Finnish
f	French
d	German
din	German DIN
el	Greek
iw	Hebrew
hu	Hungarian
is	Icelandic
in	Indonesian
i	Italian
ja	Japanese
ko	Korean
esa	Latin American Spanish
lv	Latvian
lt	Lithuanian
ms	Malay
esm	Mexican Spanish
n	Norwegian
pl	Polish
pt	Portuguese
ro	Romanian
ru	Russian
zhs	Simplified Chinese
sk	Slovak
sl	Slovenian
e	Spanish
s	Swedish
th	Thai
zht	Traditional Chinese
tr	Turkish
uk	Ukrainian
vn	Vietnamese

Note  The fact that a particular language is supported does not necessarily mean that a translation for that language is available.


Supported territories

Algeria	Greece	Portugal
America	Hong Kong	Qatar
Austria	Hungary	Romania
Bahrain	Iceland	Saudi Arabia
Bangladesh	Iraq	Slovakia
Brazil	Israel	Slovenia
Bulgaria	Italy	Somalia
Canada	Japan	Spain
Catalonia	Jordan	Sudan
China	Korea	Sweden
CIS	Kuwait	Switzerland
Croatia	Latvia	Syria
Cyprus	Lebanon	Taiwan
Czech Republic	Libya	Thailand
Czechoslovakia	Lithuania	The Netherlands
Denmark	Malaysia	Tunisia
Djibouti	Mauritania	Turkey
Egypt	Mexico	Ukraine
Estonia	Morocco	United Arab Emirates
Finland	Norway	United Kingdom
France	Oman	Vietnam
Germany	Poland	Yemen


Bidirectional support in Forms Developer

  Related Topics

NLS support for Middle Eastern and North African languages includes bidirectional support for languages whose natural writing direction is right-to-left.

Bidirectional support enables developers to control:

•	layout direction, which includes displaying items with labels at the right of the item and correct placement of check boxes and radio buttons.

•	reading order, which includes right-to-left or left-to-right text direction.

•	alignment, which includes switching point-of-origin from upper left to upper right.

•	initial keyboard state, which controls whether Local or Roman characters will be produced automatically when the end user begins data entry in forms (the end user can override this setting).

In addition to the NLS_LANG environment variable, bidirectional applications may use two additional environment variables:

•	DEVELOPER_NLS_LANG

•	USER_NLS_LANG

For example, if you want to use an American interface while developing an Arabic application in a Windows environment, set these environment variables as follows:

DEVELOPER_NLS_LANG=AMERICAN_AMERICA.AR8MSWIN1256
USER_NLS_LANG=ARABIC_territory.charset


Bidirectional support in Form Builder

  Related Topics

Five properties are used to specify the appearance of objects in bidirectional applications: Direction, Justification, Reading Order, Keyboard State, and Initial Keyboard State.

Direction is an umbrella property that provides as much functionality for each object as possible. For all objects except text items and display items, the Direction property is the only bidirectional property, and its setting controls the other aspects of bidirectional function. (List items, however, include Initial Keyboard State and Keyboard State properties.)

Text items and display items do not have a Direction property; instead, you can specifically set Justification, Reading Order, Initial Keyboard State, and Keyboard State properties for these items.

You may restrict the keyboard state to one language. For example, setting Keyboard State to Local prevents the end user from switching the keyboard to another language.

When the bidirectional properties are set to Default, those properties inherit their values from the natural writing direction specified by the language environment variable.  In most cases, this will provide the desired functionality.  You only need to specify the bidirectional properties when you want to override the inherited default values.

Inheritance for bidirectional properties is as follows:

	Default setting derives value from this object
Form	language environment variable
All objects, such as Alert, Block, LOV, Window, and Canvas-view	Form
All items, such as Text Item, Display Item, Check Box, Button, Radio Group, and List Item	Canvas-view

Most properties related to bidirectional function can be retrieved and set programmatically. For more information, see the appropriate built-in subprogram description. For example, for information about getting the value of the Direction property for buttons, see the description for GET_ITEM_PROPERTY.


Bidirectional support in Report Builder

  Related Topics

Four properties are used to specify the appearance of objects in bidirectional applications: Justify, Direction (for an object), and Direction (for the report).  The bidirectional properties are added to objects in the following hierarchy:

Module

Boilerplate

Field

External Boilerplate

Button

Parameter Form Boilerplate

Objects not in this list either do not require bidirectional support (for example, images) or they are defaulted from one of the above object’s properties.


Unicode support in Forms Developer

  Related Topics

Unicode is a global character set that allows multilingual text to be displayed in a single application. This enables multinational corporations to develop a single multilingual application and deploy it worldwide.

Global markets require a character set that:

•	allows a single implementation of a product for all languages, yet is simple enough to be implemented everywhere.

•	contains all major living scripts.

•	supports multilingual users and organizations.

•	enables worldwide interchange of data via the Internet.

Forms Developer provides Unicode support. If you use Unicode, you will be able to display multiple languages, both single-byte languages such as Western European, Eastern European, Bidirectional Middle Eastern, etc. and multi-byte Asian languages such as Chinese, Japanese, and Korean (CJK) in the same application.

Use of a single character set that encompasses all languages eliminates the need to have various character sets for various languages.

For example to display a multi-byte language such as Japanese, the NLS_LANG environment variable must be set to (for Windows platform):

Japan_Japanese.JA16SJIS

To display a single-byte language such as German, NLS_LANG must be set to (for Windows platform):

German_Germany.WE8ISO8859P1

The obvious disadvantage of this scheme is that applications can only display characters from one character set at a time. Mixed character set language data is not possible.

With the Unicode character set, you can set the character set portion of NLS_LANG to UTF8 instead of a specific language character set. This allows characters from different languages and character sets to be displayed simultaneously.

For instance to display Japanese and German together on the screen the NLS_LANG variable setting must be:

Japanese_Japan.UTF8

or

German_Germany.UTF8

The Unicode capability of Forms Developer gives the application developer and end user the ability to display multilingual text in a form. This includes text from a database containing Unicode, multilingual text, text in GUI objects (for example, button labels), text input from the keyboard, and text from the clipboard. Forms Developer currently supports Unicode on Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 95/98 (limited support).

Note  If you develop applications for the Web, you can use Unicode because of the Unicode support provided by Java.


Configuration considerations

  Related Topics

UNIX servers can support multiple ORACLE_HOMEs (where ORACLE_HOME is the directory created by and for Oracle software) and can therefore support multiple NLS settings. This means a single UNIX server can support multiple languages.

Windows NT however, can only support a single ORACLE_HOME and therefore can only have one NLS setting. This means Windows NT can only support one language.


Unicode font support

  Related Topics

To display Unicode multilingual text, a font must be used that contains the glyphs, or characters of the languages to be displayed. On Windows NT and Windows 95/98, you must use either TrueType 'Big Fonts' supplied by Microsoft, or a third party Unicode font. If you try to type, display, or print multilingual text and see unexpected characters, you are probably not using a Big Font. Big Fonts provided by Microsoft under NT 4.0 are:

•	Arial

•	Courier New

•	Lucida Console

•	Lucida Sans Unicode

•	Times New Roman

A third party font may be used if Windows Big Fonts do not meet the display requirements.


Enabling Unicode support

  Related Topics

To enable Unicode support in Forms Developer, set NLS_LANG as follows:

NLS_LANG=language_territory.UTF8


Converting between character sets

  Related Topics

When you begin to design applications for use in multiple languages, you need to consider both the character sets used by application end users, and those used by application developers. While conversion at the character set level at runtime is automatic, this conversion impacts performance.

For example, if you build an application in one character set and run it in another character set, you may notice a degradation in performance. In addition, if a character set does not contain an equivalent for a particular character, it will display a replacement character instead, for example a question mark (?). However, even if you don’t see any visible difference, as a developer you will want to pay attention to the character sets you use to generate, because of performance issues.

Note  Forms Developer only converts between character sets for the same language, for example AR8MSWIN and AR8ISO, or IW8MSWIN and IW8ISO.

If you are designing applications to run in more than one language, or even in the same language with different character sets, for best performance you will want to match your generate environment to your runtime environment:

•	Determine the character set most widely used at runtime.

•	Generate with the language environment variable set to that character set.

Note  For Form Builder, the character set used when generating is used at runtime, regardless of the character set specified in the runtime environment.


The Forms Developer user interface

  Related Topics

Oracle uses a single executable approach for software internationalization. This means that you do not need a separate executable (for example f60des.exe) to process single-byte European languages or multi-byte Asian languages. The same set of tools can be used to create both English and non-English applications.

Note  Forms Developer relies on the Microsoft Windows operating system for the font and input method for the different languages. To enter and display text in any particular language, you must be running a version of Windows that supports that language (that is, to display Thai, you must be running Thai Windows).

When you install Forms Developer, you select the language of the message files you want to install. When you use an Forms Developer component (for example Form Builder), the appropriate message file, based on the language environment variable, is used to display the interface, including:

•	messages

•	menus and menu items

•	dialog boxes

•	prompts and hints

•	alerts

If Forms Developer does not find a message file that corresponds to the current language setting, it defaults to the American message files.

Note  During installation you can only specify one language to install message files for in addition to American. If you later want to use Forms Developer with a different language, you will need to reinstall Forms Developer with the appropriate message files.

Message file names specify both the Forms Developer component and the language, using the following file naming convention:

<product_id><language_id>.MSB

For example, for Form Builder:

FMDUS.MSB contains default (American) Builder messages

FMGUS.MSB contains default (American) Generate messages

FMFUS.MSB contains default (American) Runform messages

FMFI.MSB contains Italian Runform messages

FMFD.MSB contains German Runform messages

For more information about installation of language dependent message file, see the Installation and User Guide for your platform.

Note  Language supplements are not forward compatible, they are only meant to work with the version of Forms Developer they were released with. If you already have language supplements from previous releases, these must be removed from your system.


Using CONVERT to convert data

You can use the SQL function CONVERT to convert data between character sets. This function converts the binary representation of a character string in one character set to another. For information about converting, see Converting between character sets.

For a complete description of CONVERT, see the Oracle8 SQL Reference manual.


Default format masks

  Examples	  Related Topics

The language environment variable establishes not only the language used for the Forms Developer interface (both Builders and Runtime), but also the set of default format masks used to display that data, unless explicit format masks override the default. As an application developer, you also have additional NLS-related format mask characters available if you choose to override the default display masks.

All data input into Forms Developer or the application will use the default format masks associated with the specified territory, so you can change languages when building an application as well as when running it, without needing to change the date and number formats.

Specifically, Forms Developer uses the default format masks:

•	in the Builder: When the Builder displays default values for items, ranges, or parameters

•	at runtime: If a user enters data into a text item whose type is territory specific, such as DATE or NUMBER

While working with date and currency fields for multilingual applications, you will want to consider:

•	Whether to make all displayed items (boilerplate, text items, interface objects such as buttons and lists of values) longer to accommodate text translation and language-specific conventions for numeric display.

•	Whether you need to use the NLS-related format mask characters to create special format masks, or if the default format masks invoked by NLS_LANG are sufficient.


Tip
For implicit datatype conversions, PL/SQL always expects items in the America default format (such as DD-MON-YY), so if you use an item whose type is territory-specific in PL/SQL, you will need to specify the correct format masks. Oracle recommends that you use TO_DATE to translate territory-specific items in PL/SQL.

IF :emp.hiredate < TO_DATE(’30-12-1996’,’DD-MM-YYYY’) THEN
   ...


Format mask characters

  Examples	  Related Topics

The following format mask characters allow you to override the default format masks.

Date format mask characters

Character	Returns
D	Digit for the day (1-7)
DY	Name of the day (abbreviated)
DAY	Name of the day (padded with blanks to the length of 9 characters)
WW	Digit for the week, calculated by the algorithm int((day-jan1)/7)
IW	Digit of the ISO week
MON	Name of the month (abbreviated)
MONTH	Name of the month (padded with blanks to the length of 9 characters)
RM	Character for the Roman numeral month
I,IY,IYY,IYYYY	Last one, two, or three digits of the ISO year or the ISO year, respectively
BC,AD,B.C.,A.D.	BC or AD indicator (with or without periods)
AM,PM,A.M.,P.M.	AM or PM indicator (with or without periods)
For more information on ISO and its date format masks, see the Oracle Server SQL Reference.

Number format mask characters

Character	Returns
C	International currency symbol
L	Local currency symbol
D	Decimal separator
G	Group (thousands) separator


Sorting character data

  Restrictions	  Examples	  Related Topics

Conventionally, when character data is sorted, the sort sequence is based on the numeric values of the characters defined by the character encoding scheme. Such a sort is called a binary sort and produces reasonable results for the English alphabet because the ASCII and EBCDIC standards define the letters A to Z in ascending numeric value.  Note

However, when characters used in other languages are present, a binary sort generally does not produce reasonable results. For example, an ascending ORDER BY query would return the character strings ABC, ABZ, BCD, ÄBC, in that sequence, when the Ä has a higher numeric value than B in the character encoding scheme.

To produce a sort sequence that matches the alphabetic sequence of characters for a particular language, another sort technique must be used that sorts characters independently of their numeric values in the character encoding scheme. This technique is called a linguistic sort. A linguistic sort operates by replacing characters with other binary values that reflect the character's proper linguistic order so that a binary sort returns the desired result.

Linguistic special cases  Linguistic special cases are character sequences that need to be treated as a single character when sorting. Such special cases are handled automatically when using a linguistic sort. For example, one of the linguistic sort sequences for Spanish specifies that the double characters ch and ll are sorted as single characters appearing between c and d and between l and m respectively.

Another example is the German language sharp s (ß). The linguistic sort sequence German can sort this sequence as the two characters SS, while the linguistic sort sequence American sorts it as SZ.

Special cases like these are also handled when converting uppercase characters to lowercase, and vice versa. For example, in German the uppercase of the sharp s is the two characters SS. Such case-conversion issues are handled by the NLS_UPPER, NLS_LOWER, and NLS_INITCAP functions, according to the conventions established by the linguistic sort sequence. (The standard functions UPPER, LOWER, and INITCAP do not handle these special cases.)

NLSSORT function  You can use the SQL function NLSSORT to sort character data. This function replaces a character string with the equivalent sort string used by the sort mechanism. For a binary sort, the sort string is the same as the input string. When a linguistic sort is being used, NLSSORT returns the binary values used to replace the original string.


Note
In the ASCII standard all uppercase letters appear before any lowercase letters. In the EBCDIC standards, the opposite is true: all lowercase letters appear before any uppercase letters.


Linguistic sorting restrictions

  Related Topics

Linguistic sorting is not supported on multi-byte character sets.


Comparing strings in a WHERE clause

  Examples	  Related Topics

Character strings in a WHERE clause are compared using the characters’ binary values: a character is 'greater than' another if it has a higher binary value in the database character set. Because the sequence of characters based on their binary values may not match the alphabetic sequence for a language, the comparisons often do not follow alphabetic conventions. Use the NLSSORT function to perform a linguistic sort instead of a binary sort.


Controlling an ORDER BY clause

  Related Topics

If a linguistic sorting sequence is in use, then NLSSORT is implicitly used on each character item in the ORDER BY clause. As a result, the sort mechanism (linguistic or binary) used for an ORDER BY is transparent to the application.

However, if the NLSSORT function is explicitly specified for a character item in an ORDER BY item, then the implicit NLSSORT is not done. In other words, the NLSSORT linguistic replacement is only applied once, not twice.

The NLSSORT function is generally not needed in an ORDER BY clause, when the default sort mechanism is a linguistic sort. However, when the default sort mechanism is binary, then a query such as:

SELECT ENAME FROM EMP

ORDER BY ENAME

will use a binary sort. A linguistic sort (for German in the example below) can be obtained using:

SELECT ENAME FROM EMP

ORDER BY NLSSORT(ENAME, ’NLS_SORT = GERMAN’)


Using ALTER SESSION

  Examples	  Related Topics

You can use the ALTER SESSION SQL command to override the NLS defaults. For example, suppose you create some parameters (such as language, territory, etc.), and a user specifies values for them: you could then alter the session as they specified.

Note  At runtime, the server executes an ALTER SESSION command on behalf of the client based on the values specified in NLS_LANG. If NLS_LANG is not defined, the ALTER SESSION statement is not executed.

In Form Builder, you can specify any of the following NLS parameters for the ALTER SESSION command. However, for Report Builder and Graphics Builder, you can only specify the NLS_SORT parameter.

Parameter	Description
NLS_LANGUAGE	Language used by the server to return messages and errors
NLS_TERRITORY	Territory used for default date and currency masks
NLS_DATE_FORMAT	Default format used for dates
NLS_DATE_LANGUAGE	Default language used for dates
NLS_NUMERIC_CHARACTERS	Decimal character and group separator
NLS_ISO_CURRENCY	ISO international currency symbol
NLS_CURRENCY	Local currency symbol
NLS_SORT	Character sort sequence
NLS_CALENDAR	Current calendar system

For details on these parameters, see the Oracle8 SQL Reference manual.


Using NLS parameters in SQL functions

  Related Topics

Wherever you use SQL, you can use the following NLS parameters to override default NLS behavior.

SQL Function	NLS Parameter(s)
TO_DATE	NLS_DATE_LANGUAGE NLS_CALENDAR
TO_NUMBER	NLS_NUMERIC_CHARACTERS NLS_CURRENCY NLS_ISO_CURRENCY
TO_CHAR	NLS_DATE_LANGUAGE NLS_NUMERIC_CHARACTERS NLS_CURRENCY NLS_ISO_CURRENCY NLS_CALENDAR
NLS_UPPER	NLS_SORT
NLS_LOWER	NLS_SORT
NLS_INITCAP	NLS_SORT
NLSSORT	NLS_SORT

For details on these parameters, see the Oracle8 SQL Reference manual.


Form Builder NLS parameters

  Related Topics

You can use Form Builder built-in functions to obtain the current value of the NLS environment variables for use in PL/SQL code:

	DEVELOPER_NLS_LANG	USER_NLS_LANG
Built-in	GET_FORM_PROPERTY	GET_APPLICATION_PROPERTY
Parameter	MODULE_NLS_LANG	USER_NLS_LANG

Because both USER_NLS_LANG and DEVELOPER_NLS_LANG default to the value of NLS_LANG, the Form Builder NLS parameters will hold the value of NLS_LANG if either variable is not specifically set.

Both Form Builder NLS parameters have four variations, to allow you to retrieve either the complete environment variable or a specific portion of it. This table shows the four parameters of the GET_APPLICATION_PROPERTY built-in that returns the USER_NLS_LANG environment variable:

Parameter	Returns
USER_NLS_LANG	Entire USER_NLS_LANG variable
USER_NLS_LANGUAGE	Language portion only
USER_NLS_TERRITORY	Territory portion only
USER_NLS_CHARACTER_SET	Character set portion only

To retrieve the DEVELOPER_NLS_LANG environment variable, call GET_FORM_PROPERTY, using the MODULE_NLS_LANG parameter.


Printer definition files and National Language Support

  Related Topics

When using reports in character mode, you should define the physical page width of a report as one character less than the page width defined in the printer definition file (.PRT file). Otherwise, multi-byte characters might start on the last character space of a line and have to overflow to the next line in order to complete. For example, if the physical page width is 80 characters and the width in the printer definition is 80 characters, a multi-byte character might start on the 80th character. Since multi-byte characters may not be separated, the line would have to overflow to an 81st character in order to complete the multi-byte character. To avoid this, the physical page width should be set to 79 for the report.

The following Arabic and Hebrew specific NLS parameters can be set in the printer definition file:

Use:	To:	Values:
nls locale	set the locale of printing engine.	hebrew or arabic
nls datastorageorder	set logical or visual data storage.	logical or visual
nls contextuallayout	perform pre contextual layout for Arabic printers.	no or yes
nls contextualshaping	perform pre contextual shaping for Arabic printers.	no or yes
nls pcharset	specify the character set of the printer.	any character set

For more information about printer definition files, see the Report Builder help system.


Translating applications

  Related Topics

All error messages and boilerplate text should be in the same language. When running an application, an end user views messages and boilerplate text from three sources:

•	error messages from the server

•	runtime error messages produced by Forms Developer

•	messages and boilerplate text defined as part of the application

Oracle's NLS handles translation for the first two sources. You, as the application developer are responsible for translating the messages and boilerplate text for the third source.

In general, there are two types of application-specific text you will need to translate:

•	translatable text, such as menus, boilerplate text, item labels, messages, and hints

•	strings in triggers and procedures, including alerts and messages defined in triggers

Translation Builder helps you translate the 'translatable text' strings in the user interface into multiple languages. You can use Translation Builder to assist with translation for almost all multilingual Forms Developer applications by generating separate binary files for each language.

While Translation Builder helps you find and translate strings in the user interface, it cannot pull out string constants in PL/SQL triggers and procedures. Manual translation is required for constant text within PL/SQL block, because that text is not clearly delimited, but is often built up from variables and pieces of strings.

For a complete description of Translation Builder, refer to the Translation Builder help system.


Design considerations

  Related Topics

When designing an application that will be translated, remember to leave extra space for widgets and boilerplate labels. To accommodate multiple character sets and allow for expansion caused by translation, a rule-of-thumb is to leave 30% white space around fields, borders, and boilerplate text.

For example:

Prompt on left of field	Allow 30% expansion room to left of prompt.
Prompt above field	Allow 30% expansion room to right of prompt.
Buttons, check boxes, radio groups and poplists	Allow for 30% expansion.
Titles	Size any bounding box so the title can expand to the right by 30%.
Display-only fields	Size 30% wider than needed for the base language.
All widgets	Make widgets large enough to accommodate translation. For example, buttons need to be large enough to hold translated labels. Check button height as well as length, to be sure the height of the button will accommodate the tallest character you need to use. For example, calculate pixels needed to render Kanji characters.


Using the Translation Builder approach

  Related Topics

You can use Translation Builder to assist with translation for almost all multilingual Forms Developer applications. Unless your application requires end users to toggle between languages at runtime, you can use Translation Builder and then generate separate binary files for each language.

To change from one language to another at runtime, the user exits the application, changes the language environment variable, and then restarts the application.

Using the Translation Builder approach, you would develop your application in the following stages:

•	Create one basic application definition (for example .FMB, .RDF) in the source language.

•	Use Translation Builder to extract strings for translation, allow translation into one or several languages, and then store the strings back into the application definition.

•	Manually translate standard messages in PL/SQL libraries.

•	Use the Generator to generate a binary version of the application for each target language.

Advantages  This is the simplest way to implement multiple language applications quickly. With this approach, you can use Translation Builder for maximum efficiency. If you have a stable application, this approach will work well for you.

For example, if you created an application in four languages and then needed to change the text of a field label, you would make the change in the Builder, save the change in the definition file, use Translation Builder to translate the new field label, and then insert the new messages into the definition file and regenerate to create a binary file containing the new label.

Disadvantages  If your applications must support multiple languages simultaneously, you must use the runtime language switching approach instead.


Using the runtime language switching approach

  Related Topics

A small number of applications must support multiple languages simultaneously. For example, the application may begin by displaying a window in English which must stay up throughout the application, while an end user may press a button on that window to toggle the prompts into French, and then back into English.

If your application requires runtime language switching, you can include more than one language in a single application as long as they share the same character set, but you cannot use Translation Builder to locate translatable text if you are dynamically populating the text at runtime. Instead, you would build case structures (IF...THEN...ELSIF) to change the application to another language by checking the value of the NLS environment variable using the GET_FORM_PROPERTY built-in.

Using the runtime language switching approach, you would develop your application in the following stages:

•	Develop the entire application for one language, including libraries.

•	Manually translate each library.

•	Design boilerplate labels as appropriately sized display items that are dynamically populated at runtime.

Form Builder supports attaching multiple libraries, so you can use one library specifically for messages that will be translated, and other libraries for other purposes.

Advantages  The main advantage of this approach is it allows you to support sophisticated applications in which the forms may be highly dynamic. In these cases, this approach avoids some maintenance problems, because you do not have to generate separate files for each language each time the form changes.

Disadvantages  This approach is more complicated, because it involves considerable effort to create the language-specific message storage, population, and maintenance involved and to perform the translation manually. For example, you would set up a WHEN-NEW-FORM-INSTANCE trigger to set the labels for each button, pulling the correct labels from an attached library, based on the value of the NLS environment variable.


Using PL/SQL libraries for strings in code

  Examples	  Related Topics

While Translation Builder assists in translating messages that are part of the standard Builder interface, messages that are displayed programmatically require special treatment. You can use the PL/SQL libraries to implement a flexible message structure for messages in triggers or procedures.

For application-specific messages—those displayed programmatically to the screen by the built-in routines MESSAGE or CHANGE_ALERT_MESSAGE, or by assigning a message to a display item from a trigger or procedure—you can use the attachable PL/SQL libraries to implement a flexible message function. The library can be stored on the host, then dynamically attached at runtime. At runtime, based on a search path, you can pull in the library attached to the form. (For example, a library might hold only the Italian messages.)


National Language Support examples

  Related Topics 	  All examples

Comparing strings examples

Format mask examples

NLS_LANG examples

PL/SQL libraries example


ALTER SESSION examples

  Related Topics

The following statement changes the decimal character to a comma and the group separator to a period:

ALTER SESSION
   SET NLS_NUMERIC_CHARACTERS = ',.'

These new characters are returned when you use their number format elements D and G:

SELECT TO_CHAR(SUM(sal), 'L999G999D99') Total FROM emp

TOTAL
--------------
   FF29.025,00

The next statement changes the ISO currency symbol to the ISO currency symbol for the territory America:

ALTER SESSION
   SET NLS_ISO_CURRENCY = America

The ISO currency symbol defined for America is used:

SELECT TO_CHAR(SUM(sal), 'C999G999D99') Total FROM emp

TOTAL
---------------
   USD29.025,00

The next statement changes the local currency symbol to DM:

ALTER SESSION
   NLS_CURRENCY = 'DM'

The new local currency symbol is returned when you use the L number format element:

SELECT TO_CHAR(SUM(sal), 'L999G999D99') Total FROM emp

TOTAL
--------------
   DM29.025,00


Comparing strings examples

  Related Topics 	  All examples

Suppose you have a column (COL1) that contains the values ABC, ABZ, BCD and ÄBC in the ISO 8859/1 8-bit character set. Suppose also, that you wrote the following query:

SELECT COL1 FROM TAB1 WHERE COL1 > 'B'

The query would return both BCD and ÄBC since Ä has a higher numeric value than B.

You can perform linguistic comparisons using NLSSORT in the WHERE clause, as follows:

WHERE NLSSORT(column) operator NLSSORT(string)

Notice that NLSSORT has to be used on both sides of the comparison operator.

SELECT COL1 FROM TAB1 WHERE NLSSORT(COL1) > NLSSORT('B')

If a German linguistic sort is being used, this will not return strings beginning with Ä, because Ä comes before B in the German alphabet. If a  Swedish linguistic sort is being used, those strings would be returned, because Ä comes after Z in the Swedish alphabet.


Format mask examples

  Related Topics 	  All examples

For NLS-compliant applications, avoid hard-coding a string containing a month name. However, if a hard coded month name is essential, avoid using the COPY built-in. If you use COPY, the month name may be incorrect, depending on which language is specified. (To specify a date in a library, use a variable for the date and COPY will work.)

Language-dependent example (not recommended):

:emp.hiredate := '30-DEC-96';

copy ('30-DEC-96','emp.hiredate');

Instead, use TO_DATE, as shown in the following example.

Language-independent example (recommended):

:emp.hiredate := to_date(’30-12-1996’,’DD-MM-YYYY’);


NLS_LANG examples

  Related Topics 	  All examples

Suppose you want your application to run in French. The application will be used in France and data will be displayed using the WE8ISO8895P1 character set. You would set NLS_LANG as follows:

NLS_LANG=French_France.WE8ISO8895P1

Now, suppose you still want your application to run in French, but this time it will be used in Switzerland. You would set NLS_LANG as follows:

NLS_LANG=French_Switzerland.WE8ISO8895P1

More examples:

NLS_LANG=Norwegian_Norway.NDK7DEC
NLS_LANG=Norwegian_Norway.WE8ISO8895P1
NLS_LANG=Japanese_Japan.JA16SJIS
NLS_LANG=Arabic_Egypt.AR8MSWIN1256
NLS_LANG=American_America.AR8MSWIN1256
NLS_LANG=American_America.WE8ISO8859P1


PL/SQL libraries example

  Related Topics 	  All examples

FUNCTION nls_appl_mesg(index_no NUMBER)

RETURN CHAR

IS

   msg CHAR(80);

BEGIN

   IF index_no = 1001 THEN

      msg := 'L''impiegato che Voi cercate non esiste...';

   ELSIF index_no = 1002 THEN

      msg := 'Lo stipendio non puo essere minore di zero.';

   ELSIF ...

   :

   ELSE

      msg := 'ERRORE: Indice messaggio inesistente.';

   END IF;

   RETURN msg;

END;

A routine like this could be used anywhere a character expression would normally be valid: for example, to display an alert with the appropriately translated application message you might include the following code in your form:

Change_Alert_Message('My_Error_Alert', nls_appl_mesg(1001));

n := Show_Alert('My_Error_Alert');

To change the application to another language, simply replace the PL/SQL library containing the nls_appl_mesg function with a library of the same name containing the nls_appl_mesg function with translated text.

If the application needs to support multiple languages simultaneously, the function above could accept an additional parameter indicating the desired language and the code would then contain an additional level of IF...THEN...ELSIF...ELSE...END IF to handle the various languages.


Environment variables

  Related Topics

CA_GPREFS

CA_UPREFS

CUE_PREFS

DEV2000_PROJECT

DEV2000_SOURCECONTROL

DOC60

FORMS60_DEFAULTFONT

FORMS60_EDITOR

FORMSnn_ERROR_DATE/DATETIME_FORMAT

FORMS60_JAVADIR

FORMS60_MAPPING

FORMS60_OUTPUT

FORMSnn_OUTPUT_DATE/DATETIME_FORMAT

FORMS60_PATH

FORMSnn_PLSQLV1_NAME_RESOLUTION

FORMS60_REPFORMAT

FORMS60_TIMEOUT

FORMSnn_USER_DATE/DATETIME_FORMAT

FORMS60_USEREXITS

GRAPHICS60_PATH

INTERRUPT (DOS SQL*Net users only)

LOCAL

NLS_LANG

OleCreateObjPoolInMemory

OleDoNotUpdateLinks

OleUpdateLinksPrompt

ORACLE_HOME

ORACLE_PATH

ORAINFONAV_DOCPATH

REPORTS60_CGIDIAGBODYTAGS

REPORTS60_CGIDIAGHEADTAGS

REPORTS60_CGIHELP

REPORTS60_CGIMAP

REPORTS60_CGINODIAG

REPORTS60_CGIPATHONLYURL

REPORTS60_COOKIE_EXPIRE

REPORTS60_DB_AUTH

REPORTS60_ENCRYPTION_KEY

REPORTS60_OWSDIAGBODYTAGS

REPORTS60_OWSDIAGHEADTAGS

REPORTS60_OWSHELP

REPORTS60_OWSMAP

REPORTS60_OWSNODIAG

REPORTS60_OWSPATHONLYURL

REPORTS60_PATH

REPORTS60_REPORTS_SERVER

REPORTS60_SYS_AUTH

REPORTS60_TERMINAL

REPORTS60_TMP

REPORTS60_USEREXIT

REMOTE

UI_ICON

USERNAME

WIN_REMOTE_SESSIONS

XMITTR(DOS users only)


The Registry (Windows 95 and Windows NT)

  Environment Variables

The Oracle Installer creates a new ORACLE section in your registry.  The Oracle registry contains configuration parameters that control such things as the name of the Oracle home directory, the location of the product preference file, and the location of the help files.

Viewing and modifying the Registry

You can view and optionally edit the Microsoft Windows Registry by using the Registry Editor.  This editor is located in the directory where your Windows software is installed.  To start the editor, choose Start [image] Run, then type REGEDIT and click OK.

In the Registry Editor, expand the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE node, then expand the SOFTWARE node.  Click the ORACLE key to display the Oracle configuration parameters.

You can modify any parameter value by double-clicking the parameter name to display the Edit String dialog.  Change the value in the Value data text box, then click OK to accept the new value.


Configuration parameters

  Environment Variables

The Oracle Installer automatically sets many parameters.  Some of these parameters are required by Oracle products, and other parameters allow you to customize the products' behavior.

Required parameters

The parameters listed in this section are automatically set or removed by the Oracle Installer.  They are required by various Oracle products to function properly.

Caution: Do not change the settings of parameters listed in this section.  Doing so may cause one or more Oracle products to stop functioning correctly.

The appearance of nn in the parameters listed below specifies a product or component release number.  This number may change when you upgrade to a new release of an Oracle product.

Parameter	Default Value
BROWSERnn	ORACLE_HOME\BROWSE25
DEnn	ORACLE_HOME\TOOLS\COMMON60
FORMSnn	ORACLE_HOME\FORMS60
GRAPHICSnn	ORACLE_HOME\GRAPH60
MMnn	ORACLE_HOME\TOOLS\COMMON60
OCLnn	ORACLE_HOME\GRAPH60
PROnn	ORACLE_HOME\PRO18
RDBMSnn	ORACLE_HOME\RDBMS73
RWnn	ORACLE_HOME\REPORT60
TKnn	ORACLE_HOME\TOOLS\COMMON60
VGSnn	ORACLE_HOME\TOOLS\COMMON60
Customizeable parameters

The parameters listed in this section control various aspects of your Oracle products.  You may change the settings of these parameters to customize the product's behavior.

The sections below list the default setting (if any) of each parameter that is automatically set by the Oracle Installer.  Those parameters that aren't automatically set are also noted.  Descriptions of the valid values and examples of settings are also provided.


CA_GPREFS

Default:  ORACLE_HOME

Valid Values:  any directory on any drive

Example:

CA_GPREFS=C:\orawin95

This parameter specifies the location of the global preferences file, CAGPREFS.ORA.  Global preferences are shared among networked users.  In addition to searching the directory specified by the CA_GPREFS parameter, products will also search the current directory for the CAGPREFS.ORA file.

The CAGPREFS.ORA file is automatically created by the Oracle Installer.  To modify the global preference settings, use a text editor such as Notepad to manually edit this file.  Global preferences set in CAGPREFS.ORA can be overridden by the local preference file, CAUPREFS.ORA, which is defined by the parameter CA_UPREFS.


CA_UPREFS

Default:  ORACLE_HOME

Valid Values:  any directory on any drive

Example:

CA_UPREFS=C:\orawin95

This parameter specifies the location of the user preferences file, CAUPREFS.ORA.  The CAUPREFS.ORA file maintains the preferences that you set via Tools [image] Tools Options within your products.  In addition to searching the directory specified by the CA_UPREFS parameter, the product will also search the current directory for the CAUPREFS.ORA file.

Several Oracle products write their preference information to the CAUPREFS.ORA file.  To manually modify the user preference settings, use a text editor such as Notepad to edit this file.  User preferences set in CAUPREFS.ORA override global preferences set in the CAGPREFS.ORA file, which is defined by the parameter CA_GPREFS.


CUE_PREFS

Default:  ORACLE_HOME

Valid Values:  any directory on any drive

Example:

CUE_PREFS=C:\orawin95

This parameter specifies the location of the Cue Cards preferences file, CUEPREF.RES.  The CUEPREF.RES file maintains the Cue Card preferences that you can set from the Cue Cards Options dialog.

Your preferences are saved to the CUEPREF.RES file each time you exit from an application.  You cannot modify this file manually.


DEV2000_SOURCECONTROL

Default:  none

Valid Values:  keywords that specify which source control system should be used with Forms Developer or Reports Developer

Example:

DEV2000_SOURCECONTROL=PVCS

This parameter specifies which source control system you plan to use with with Forms Developer or Reports Developer.  Currently, you can either specify no source control system, or you can set this parameter to the value 'PVCS.'  As support for additional source control systems is added, you will be able to specify keywords for additional source control systems, as well.


DEV2000_PROJECT

Default:  none

Valid Values:  keywords that specify the project file of the source control system to be used with with Forms Developer or Reports Developer

Example:

DEV2000_PROJECT=c:\pvcs\project1\project1.cfg

This parameter specifies the name of the project file for the source control system you selected on the DEV2000_SOURCECONTROL parameter.


DOC60

Default:  Oracle_Home\tools\doc60

Valid Values:  any directory on any drive

Example:

DOC60=c:\orawin95\tools\doc60

This parameter specifies the location of the online documentation files, including online help, Cue Cards, and Quick Tours.


FORMS60_DEFAULTFONT

Default:  none

Valid Values:  A text string specifying any valid font.

Example:

FORMS60_DEFAULTFONT="MS Sans Serif.8"

This parameter specifies the default font used for boilerplate in the Form Builder Layout editor.


FORMS60_EDITOR

Default:  none

Valid Values:  the name and path of a system editor

Example:

FORMS60_EDITOR=C:\windows\notepad.exe

This parameter defines the editor that can be invoked by Form Builder multi-line items in the Designer or Runform components.  No user-defined editor will be launched unless this parameter is defined.

Note:  When exiting the editor, the file must be saved back as an "ASCII Only" file.  No native word processor formats are supported.


FORMSnn_ERROR_DATE/DATETIME_FORMAT

Purpose:  These two environment variables establish the format masks that Forms will use in producing runtime error messages that are issued when an end user enters an invalid value into a date or datetime item.

Default:  See the help topic About Format Masks for Dates.

Valid Values:  any valid date/datetime format mask.

Example:

FORMS65_ERROR_DATE_FORMAT YYYY/MM/DD


FORMS60_JAVADIR

Default:  Oracle_Home\forms60\java

Valid Values:  the name and path of the Oracle Java runtime environment

Example:

FORMS60_JAVADIR=C:\orant\forms60\java

This parameter defines the location of the Oracle Java runtime environment files required to use Java Bean areas and to preview web-based forms from Form Builder.


FORMS60_MAPPING

Default:  none

Valid Values: the virtual location of your temporary work directory

Example:

FORMS60_MAPPING=http://myhost.com/webtemp

To process images on the Web, the Forms Server transmits temporary compressed JPEG files. If you use images or icons in your Web Forms applications, you must create a temporary directory and a virtual directory (for example, C:\ORANT\WEBTEMP) that the Forms Server will use for images and other work files. You must also create the FORMS60_OUTPUT and FORMS60_MAPPING environment variables on the machine on which your Forms Server is running.


FORMS60_OUTPUT

Default:  none

Valid Values:  any directory on any drive on the machine on which the Forms Server is running

Example:

FORMS60_OUTPUT=C:\ORANT\WEBTEMP\

To process images on the Web, the Forms Server transmits temporary compressed JPEG files. If you use images or icons in your Web Forms applications, you must create a temporary directory (for example, C:\ORANT\WEBTEMP) that the Forms Server will use for images and other work files. You must also create the FORMS60_OUTPUT and FORMS60_MAPPING environment variables on the machine on which your Forms Server is running.


FORMSnn_OUTPUT_DATE/DATETIME_FORMAT

Purpose:  These two environment variables establish the format masks that Forms will use for runtime ouput operations on any date and datetime items that do not have their own individual, specific masks.

Default:  See the help topic About Format Masks for Dates.

Valid Values:  any valid date/datetime format mask.

Example:

FORMS65_OUTPUT_DATETIME_FORMAT YYYY/MM/DD HH24:MI:SS


FORMS60_PATH

Default:  ORACLE_HOME\FORMS60\PLSQLLIB

Valid Values:  any directory on any drive

Example:

FORMS60_PATH=C:\oracle\apps\forms;C:\myfiles

This parameter specifies the search path for files used in a Form Builder runtime application.  These include form files (.fmx), menu files (.mmx), PL/SQL libraries (.pll), and other objects that the application attempts to load from a file at runtime.  For example, if you import the image file scooter.tif, Form Builder searches in the directories specified by FORMS60_PATH to find that file.

FORMS60_PATH can specify multiple directories.  Use a semi-colon (;) to separate directory names in a list of paths.


FORMSnn_PLSQLV1_NAME_RESOLUTION

Default:  OFF

Valid Values:  ON, OFF

Example:

FORMS6i_PLSQLV1_NAME_RESOLUTION=ON

This environment variable allows you to choose between R4.5 behavior and R5-and-later behavior for runtime program unit name resolution.  A value of ON selects R4.5 behavior.  A value of OFF (or not including this environment variable at all) selects R5-and-later behavior.

R4.5 Behavior:

When Forms encounters a call to a program unit, it first looks for the program unit in the current form or menu, then searches the attached libraries.  This behavior provides a simple style of dynamic name resolution, as the program unit that is called is not the same as the one which was resolved at compile time.  In addition, in situations where the same library is attached to multiple forms, each form maintains its own unique set of library information, including instantiations, package state, and dependencies.  This means that dependency information is not shared across forms.

R4.5 behavior has the following disadvantages:

•	No sharing of information across forms.  SHARE_LIBRARY_STATE will have no effect.

•	Increases in execution time and memory usage (as compared to R5+).

R5+ Behavior:

When Forms encounters a call to a program unit, it also first looks for the program unit in the current form or menu, then searches the attached libraries.  However, in those situations where the same library is attached to multiple forms, each form does not maintain its own unique set of library information.  Instead, the program unit instantiations are shared across forms.  This means that dependency information can be shared across forms.

Recommendation:

Because of the disadvantages noted above, and because this environment variable will not always be supported in future releases, it is recommended that you not choose the R4.5 behavior.

Instead, to obtain dynamic name resolution, use the Execute-Trigger built-in.  If arguments are needed, use global variables.


FORMS60_REPFORMAT

Default:  none

Valid Values:  HTML, PDF

Example:

FORMS60_REPFORMAT=HTML

If you are invoking a browser to run a report from a form via RUN_PRODUCT, you must set the FORMS60_REPFORMAT environment variable.  This parameter specifies the report format.


FORMS60_TIMEOUT

Default:  15

Valid Values:  1-1440 (1 day)

Example:

FORMS60_OUTPUT=1440

This parameter specifies the amount of time in elapsed minutes before the Forms server process is terminated if there is no client communication with the Forms server.


FORMSnn_USER_DATE/DATETIME_FORMAT

Purpose:  These two environment variables establish the format masks that Forms will use at runtime to extract values from items of type DATE and DATETIME, when those items do not have their own individual, specific masks.

Default:  See the help topic About Format Masks for Dates.

Valid Values:  any valid date/datetime format mask.  Multiple format masks may be specified, separated by vertical bars.  During runtime item conversion, the format masks are used in the order specified, until a conversion succeeds (or the masks are exhausted).

Example:

FORMS65_USER_DATE_FORMAT  FXFMDD-MM-RRRR


FORMS60_USEREXITS

Default:  none

Valid Values:  Any user exit dynamic link library (along w/ absolute path).

This parameter allows you to define multiple DLLs to contain foreign functions that can be invoked from a user exit interface.  The FORMS60_USEREXITS parameter includes a semicolon-delimited list of user interface DLLs.

FORMS60_USEREXITS can specify multiple DLLs.  Use a backslash (\) to separate directories in a path, and a semicolon (;) to separate complete paths.

If this value is not explicitly set, Form Builder assumes it to be ORACLE_HOME\BIN\F45XTB.DLL.

Example:

FORMS60_USEREXITS = C:\mathlib\add.dll;C:\mathlib\mult.dll


GRAPHICS60_PATH

Default:  none

Valid Values:  any directory on any drive

Example:

GRAPHICS60_PATH=C:\oracle\apps\graphics;C:\myfiles

This parameter specifies the search path for files used in a Graphics runtime application.  These include display files (.ogr), images, external queries, and other objects that the application attempts to load from a file at runtime.  For example, if you import the image file scooter.tif, Graphics Builder searches in the directories specified by GRAPHICS60_PATH to find that file.

GRAPHICS60_PATH can specify multiple directories.  Use a backslash (\) to separate directories in a path, and a semicolon (;) to separate complete paths.


INTERRUPT (DOS SQL*Net users only)

Default:  none

Valid Values:  same value specified in your DOS CONFIG.ORA file

This parameter specifies the interrupt vector address that DOS Oracle products will use.  If you use a DOS SQL*Net driver for Windows, check your CONFIG.ORA file located in the DOS Oracle home directory.  If the INTERRUPT parameter is set in CONFIG.ORA, you must set it to the same value in registry.  If this variable is not set in your DOS CONFIG.ORA files, you do not need to set it in the registry.

Note:  Do not set INTERRUPT to 103 when using a third-party memory management product such as QEMM, 386MAX, CEMM, or EMM386.  Doing so will result in unexpected behavior after you start SQLPME and SQL*Net.


LOCAL

Default:  none

Valid Values:  any valid SQL*Net driver prefix, including database string parameters.  For more information, see the Oracle Network Administrator's Guide.

This parameter specifies the SQL*Net driver and complete connect string that the product will use if you do not specify a communications driver when you connect to the database within the product.

If you add the LOCAL parameter, do not add the parameter to the end of the file.  Oracle products will not recognize the LOCAL parameter if it appears as the last parameter.

Note:  If you use a DOS SQL*Net driver for Windows, check to see whether the LOCAL parameter is set in your CONFIG.ORA file located in the DOS Oracle home directory.  If LOCAL is set in CONFIG.ORA, you must set it to the same value in the registry.


NLS_LANG

Default:  AMERICAN_AMERICA.WE8ISO8859P1

Valid Values:  See the NLS Reference Manual for a current list of available values, or see the following file on your CD: \bonus\nls\nlsd2r1.wri

Example:

NLS_LANG=AMERICAN_AMERICA.WE8ISO8859P1

This parameter sets the language in which message files appear.  The syntax for NLS_LANG is as follows:

NLS_LANG=<language>_<territory>.<char_set>

where:

language	specifies the language and its conventions for displaying messages and day and month names.
territory	specifies the territory and its conventions for calculating week and day numbers.
char_set	specifies the character set used for the UPPER, LOWER, and INITCAP functions, and the type of sort used by an ORDER BY query.  This argument also controls the character set used for displaying messages.


OleCreateObjPoolInMemory

Default:  0

Valid Values:  0 or 1

Example:

OleCreateObjPoolInMemory=0

For Report Builder, this parameter specifies whether to create the OLE2 object pool in temporary files (0) or in memory (1).  Creating the pool in memory improves performance by reducing disk access.  If you have a large number of OLE2 objects or large OLE2 objects (e.g., images), the amount of memory needed may be high.  In determining how many OLE2 objects you have, note that an OLE2 boilerplate object in a repeating frame contains one OLE2 object.  An OLE2 field contains one OLE2 object for each instance of the field.


OleDoNotUpdateLinks

Default:  0

Valid Values:  0 or 1

Example:

OleDoNotUpdateLinks=0

For Report Builder, this parameter enables (0) or disables (1) the updating of links when you open the Layout editor or run the report.  Linked OLE2 objects contain cached presentations of their source objects.  These cached presentations are updated by the corresponding OLE2 server based upon the persistent object data.

These updates occur automatically or manually, depending upon the link type.  Since updating the cached presentations requires launching the OLE2 server, you may want to disable the updating to improve performance, if you know the source objects have not changed or if you don't need the latest changes.  Note that even if you do not specify this option, you can still cancel updates from the standard dialog box that appears as the OLE2 objects are being updated.


OleUpdateLinksPrompt

Default:  0

Valid Values:  0 or 1

Example:

OleUpdateLinksPrompt=0

For Report Builder, this parameter specifies to prompt (0) or not prompt (1) when the source of a linked object is not found.  If the source of an object is not found during an update attempt, a dialog box is displayed from which you can re-specify the link source or ignore the error.  If you will not be there to accept the dialog box (e.g., you are running the report overnight), you may want to disable this prompt to ensure that the report execution completes.


ORACLE_HOME

Default:  C:\ORAWIN95

Valid Values:  any directory on any drive

Example:

ORACLE_HOME=C:\orawin95

This parameter specifies the home directory in which Windows Oracle products are installed.  This directory is the "top" directory in the Oracle directory hierarchy.

Usage Notes

•	If you are using Reports Runtime, the combined length of ORACLE_HOME and ORACLE_PATH should not exceed 255 characters


ORACLE_PATH

Default:  none

Valid Values:  any directory on any drive

Example:

ORACLE_PATH=C:\oracle\apps\forms;C:\oracle\apps\graphics;
C:\oracle\apps\reports

This parameter specifies the search path for files referenced by a Forms, Graphics, or Reports Runtime.  Note that the directories specified by ORACLE_PATH are searched after those specified by a product-specific parameter:  FORMS60_PATH, GRAPHICS60_PATH, or REPORTS60_PATH.

ORACLE_PATH can specify multiple directories.  Use a semi-colon (;) to separate directory names in a list of paths.

Usage Notes

•	If you are using Reports Runtime, the combined length of ORACLE_HOME and ORACLE_PATH should not exceed 255 characters


ORAINFONAV_DOCPATH

Default:  none

Valid Values:  any directory on any drive

Example:

ORAINFONAV_DOCPATH=C:\orawin95\oin

This parameter specifies the location of the table of contents and index for your online documentation.


REMOTE

Default:  none

Valid Values:  any valid SQL*Net driver prefix and parameters

Example:

REMOTE=P:PIPER

This parameter specifies the default and remote SQL*Net driver to use when connecting via a local database.  The parameter can include the default SQL*Net parameters (complete database string).

where P: is the network prefix for Named Pipes, and Piper is the database name.

If a user logs on and specifies a connection with an explicit driver prefix matching the one specified in REMOTE, but specifies no SQL*Net parameters, the parameters specified in REMOTE are used.  This parameter enables the DBA to define a "normal" network connection for which the SQL*Net user need not specify connection parameters.  You can reset this parameter on the command line at any time.

Note:  If you use a DOS SQL*Net driver for Windows, check to see whether the REMOTE parameter is set in your CONFIG.ORA file located in the DOS Oracle home directory.  If REMOTE is set in CONFIG.ORA, you must set it to the same value in the registry.


REPORTS60_CGIDIAGBODYTAGS

For the Reports Web CGI, specifies the HTML tags that will be inserted as <BODY…> tags in the RWCGI60 diagnostic/debugging output.  For  example, you can use this environment variable to set up text/background color and image.


REPORTS60_CGIDIAGHEADTAGS

For the Reports Web CGI, specifies HTML tags which will be inserted between <HEAD> … </HEAD> tags in the RWCGI60 diagnostic/debugging  output. For example, you may want to use this environment variable to set up <TITLE> or <META…> tags.


REPORTS60_CGIHLP

For the Reports Web CGI, defines URL/URI of the RWCGI60 help file, which will be navigated to when RWCGI60 is invoked with the empty request:

http://your_webserver/your_virtual_cgi_dir/rwcgi60.exe?

For example, setting REPORTS60_CGIHLP to http://www.yahoo.com will go to that URL; setting it to myhelpfile.htm will display the file:

http://your_webserver/myhelpfile.htm

If this variable is not defined, a default help screen will be displayed.


REPORTS60_CGIMAP

For the Reports Web CGI, defines fully qualified filename/location of the RWCGI60 map file if map file configuration is used:

c:\orant\report60\mymap.dat


REPORTS60_CGINODIAG

For the Reports Web CGI, when defined, disables all debugging/diagnostic output from RWCGI60.

http://your_webserver/cgi-bin/rwcgi60.exe/help?

Usage Note:

The parameter will not work when REPORTS60_CGINODIAG is defined.


REPORTS60_CGIPATHONLYURL

For the Reports Web CGI, when defined (the value does not matter), forces RWCGI60 to return any URLs to the browser as partial, path-only URLs; i.e., instead of returning:

Location: http://your_webserver:port/path

it will return only:

Location: /path

This variable can be used to resolve problems with Web server setups that use multiple ports, including a default port.


REPORTS60_COOKIE_EXPIRE

Default:  30

Valid Values:  any number of minutes

Example:

REPORTS60_COOKIE_EXPIRE=30

For Reports Server security, determines the idle time of the cookie (e.g., REPORTS60_COOKIE_EXPIRE=30).  Cookies save encrypted user names and passwords on the client-side.  When CGI receives a cookie from the client, CGI compares the time saved in the cookie with the current system time.

If the time is longer than the number minutes defined in the REPORTS60_COOKIE_EXPIRE parameter (e.g., 30 minutes), CGI rejects the cookie and returns the database authentication form and an error message to the client.  The user must re-authenticate to run the report.


REPORTS60_DB_AUTH

Default:  dbauth.htm

Valid Values: any html file that contains special authentication actions. It is recommended that you keep the default.

Example:

REPORTS60_DB_AUTH=dbauth.htm

Specifies the database authentication template used to log on to the database.


REPORTS60_SYS_AUTH

Default:  sysauth.htm

Valid Values: any html file that contains special authentication actions. It is recommended that you keep the default.

Example:

REPORTS60_SYS_AUTH=sysauth.htm

Specifies the authentication template used to authenticate the username and password when users run report requests to a restricted Reports Server.


REPORTS60_ENCRYPTION_KEY

Default:  Reports6.0

Valid Values:  any encryption key

Example:

REPORTS60_ENCRYPTION_KEY=reports6.0

Specifies the encryption key used to encrypt the user name and password.


REPORTS60_REPORTS_SERVER

Valid Values:  any Reports Server service entry name

Example:

REPORTS60_REPORTS_SERVER=repserver

Specifies the default Reports Server for Web Cartridge or Web CGI requests. When this parameter is set, you can omit the SERVER command line argument in report requests to process them using the default server, or you can include the SERVER command line argument to override the default.


REPORTS60_OWSDIAGBODYTAGS

For the Reports Web Cartridge, specifies HTML tags which will be inserted as a <BODY…> tag in  the RWOWS60 diagnostic/debugging output. For instance, you may want to use this environment to set up text/background color, image, etc.


REPORTS60_OWSDIAGHEADTAGS

For the Reports Web Cartridge, specifies HTML tags which will be inserted between <HEAD> …</HEAD> tags in the RWOWS60 diagnostic/debugging output. For instance, you may want to use this environment to set up <TITLE> or <META…> tags, etc.


REPORTS60_OWSHELP

Valid Values:  any path and file name or URL

For the Reports Web Cartridge, defines URL/URI of the RWOWS60 help file, which will be navigated  to when RWOWS60 is invoked with the empty request:

http://your_webserver/rwows60?

e.g., setting it to http://www.yahoo.com will go to that URL; setting it to myhelpfile.htm will display the file:

http://your_webserver/myhelpfile.htm

If this parameter is not defined, a default help screen will be displayed.


REPORTS60_OWSMAP

For the Reports Web Cartridge, defines fully qualified filename/location of the RWOWS60 map file (if map file configuration is used):

C:\ORANT\REPORTS60\MYMAP.DAT


REPORTS60_OWSNODIAG

For the Reports Web Cartridge, when defined, disables all debugging/diagnostic output from RWOWS60:

http://your_webserver/rwows60/help?

will not work when REPORTS60_OWSNODIAG is defined.


REPORTS60_OWSPATHONLYURL

For the Reports Web Cartridge, when defined (the value does not matter), it causes RWOWS60 to use path-only URLs (e.g., "/rscache/..." instead of "http://mywebsrv.com:1550/rscache/..." ) in HTTP redirection to report output and in the RWOWS60-generated diagnostic output. This is useful to force the client browser to retain the original URL request in its "Location:" field after retrieving the report output. Normally, RWOWS60 will switch the URL to the location of the report output (i.e., the directory specified by REPORTS60_WEBLOC), and will show the name of the report output file which, just having been generated, has a rather uninformative name such as 12345679.htm. By setting this parameter, this "URL switching" can be avoided. This will work only if all URLs are using the default port (typically 80).

The drawback to setting this parameter, however, is that any subsidiary files (such as image files) dependent on the main report output file will not be retrieved by the browser (although they are created successfully in the pointed to by REPORTS60_WEBLOC). This can be worked around either by specifying a <BASE HREF="..."> or <META HREF="..."> tag (with the main file location as a full or partial URL) in the report definition so that it is included in the main report output file, or by setting REPORTS60_WEBLOC to point to the location of the RWOWS60 executable.

Setting REPORTS60_OWSPATHONLYURL can also be used to workaround certain Intranet/Internet configurations where the same machine may have several different IP addresses simultaneously (with several network cards), because it removes the dependence of the HTTP redirection on the machine name or IP address.


REPORTS60_PATH

Default:  ORACLE_HOME\REPORT60\DEMO;ORACLE_HOME\REPORT60\DEMO\BITMAP;ORACLE_HOME\REPORT60\DEMO\REQFILES

Valid Values:  any directory on any drive

Example:

REPORTS60_PATH=C:\oracle\apps\reports;C:\myfiles

This environment variable is used to locate reports and external objects that you use in your reports, such as PL/SQL libraries, external queries, and external boilerplate.  It enables you to create reports that are easily portable across operating systems by preventing the need to hard-code directory paths.

Note: REPORTSPATH is limited to 256 characters.

Define REPORTS60_PATH in the same fashion you define other environment variables on your operating system, keeping in mind such platform-specific rules as path length, etc.

In addition to directory paths, you can specify the keyword DB when you define REPORTS60_PATH.  This instructs Report Builder to search the database to which you are currently connected.

Suppose you specified the following on a Unix platform:

setenv REPORTS60_PATH
/home/tkostin/pay:/home/tkostin/receive:DB

Report Builder will first search the directory /home/tkostin/pay.  If it cannot find the file in question, it will search /home/tkostin/receive.  If it still cannot find the file, it will search the database to which you connected when you began your Report Builder session.


REPORTS60_TERMINAL

Default:  none

Valid Values:  any directory on any drive

Example:

REPORTS60_TERMINAL=C:\mytermdefs

This environment variable is used to locate terminal definitions that you use in your character-mode reports.  The path you specify for this variable takes precedence over the ORACLE_TERMINAL environment variable.

Define REPORTS60_TERMINAL in the same fashion you define other environment variables on your operating system, keeping in mind such platform-specific rules as path length, etc.


REPORTS60_TMP

Default:  none

Valid Values:  any directory on any drive

Example:

REPORTS60_TMP=C:\tmp

This environment variable establishes the directory in which you wish to store Report Builder temporary files.  Report Builder will use only one directory for this purpose; do not define more than one.

Define REPORTS60_TMP in the same fashion you define other environment variables on your base operating system, keeping in mind such platform-specific rules as path length, etc.  If you don't define REPORTS60_TMP, it will default to the current working directory.


REPORTS60_USEREXIT

Default:  none

Valid Values:  any user exit dynamic link library (along with its absolute path)

Example:

REPORTS60_USEREXIT=C:\mydll.dll;d:\mynew.dll;e:\bin\speed.dll

This parameter allows you to define multiple DLLs for use by Report Builder and its related executables (e.g., Reports Runtime).  These DLLs are program modules created by you to be called by the Report Builder executables.

REPORTS60_USEREXITS can specify multiple DLLs.  Use a backslash (\) to separate directories in a path, and a semicolon (;) to separate complete paths.

If this value is not explicitly set, Report Builder looks for 60xtb32.dll according to the path variable of the system.


UI_ICON

Default:  none

Valid Values:  any accessible directory on any drive

Example:

UI_ICON=C:\icon

This environment variable establishes the directory in which you wish to store icons used for buttons in your layout.  Report Builder will use only one directory for this purpose; do not define more than one.

Define UI_ICON in the same fashion you define other environment variables on your base operating system, keeping in mind such platform-specific rules as path length, etc..


USERNAME

Default:  none

Valid Values:  any valid Oracle username (without the OPS$ prefix)

Example:

USERNAME=dsanvita

This parameter specifies the variable part of a default logon account.  See your database documentation for more information on setting the USERNAME parameter.


WIN_REMOTE_SESSIONS

Default:  none

Valid Values:  0-33

If you receive an error in the ORA-3100 to ORA-3199 range when you try to log on, there may not be enough real-mode memory to establish a communication buffer with an Oracle server.  NETINIT7.EXE solves this problem by reserving memory for server connections.

This parameter sets the number of connections to a remote server for which NETINIT7 should reserve memory.  Note the following rules when setting the WIN_REMOTE_SESSIONS parameter:

•	If you set WIN_REMOTE_SESSIONS to 0, NETINIT7 will not reserve any memory for remote server connections.

•	Setting WIN_REMOTE_SESSIONS to the values 1 through 33 will reserve memory for the specified number of connections.  Note that NETINIT7 reserves 12K of real-mode memory for each remote server connection.

•	A suggested default value for WIN_REMOTE_SESSIONS is 5.  Setting WIN_REMOTE_SESSIONS to 5 should create enough sessions to allow you to run several products.

•	If you do not add the WIN_REMOTE_SESSIONS parameter, NETINIT7 will reserve memory for one remote server connection.

To use NETINIT7, complete the following steps:

1	Configure the number of sessions by adding the WIN_REMOTE_SESSIONS parameter.

2	Create the NETINIT7 icon in your Oracle program group.  (For more information about creating icons, see your Microsoft Windows documentation.)  Enter the following path in the Command Line field of the Windows Program Item Properties dialog box:

ORACLE_HOME\bin\netinit7.exe

3	Start NETINIT7 by double-clicking the icon in the Oracle program group.  Make sure that you start NETINIT7 before you start a product.  If you want NETINIT7 to run automatically at Windows startup, include the NETINIT7 icon in the Windows Startup program group.

NETINIT7 attempts to reserve real memory for the configured number of server connections.  If NETINIT7 cannot allocate the required memory, it displays a warning message and indicates the actual number of sessions for which it has allocated memory.

After allocating memory, NETINIT7 minimizes itself.  Restoring NETINIT7 displays the total number of sessions configured and the total amount of memory used.  Closing NETINIT7 releases all unused session memory.  If an application is still using session memory, NETINIT7 notifies you that applications must log off before session memory can be freed.

Note:  If you start a product before NETINIT7, it will allocate its own session memory, which is not recognized by NETINIT7.  NETINIT7 attempts to allocate the configured session memory in addition to memory already allocated by the product you started.


XMITTR(DOS users only)

Default:  none

Valid Values:  same value specified in your DOS CONFIG.ORA file

This parameter applies only to users of Oracle DOS protected mode executables.  Check your CONFIG.ORA file, located in the DOS Oracle home directory.  If the XMMITR parameter is set in CONFIG.ORA, you must set it to the same value in the registry.  If this variable is not set in your DOS CONFIG.ORA files, you do not need to set it in the registry.

XMMITR (Extended Memory Manager Interrupt Vector) is a variable that indicates the interrupt vector to be used for the extended memory manager/mode transition driver XMM/MTD interrupt services entry point.  To set a different vector, the new interrupt vector is expressed as a decimal number.  XMMITR should be used only if another program in your system needs to use interrupt 100 decimal, or 64 hexadecimal.

Note:  Do not set XMMITR to 103 when using a third-party memory management product such as QEMM, 386MAX, CEMM, or EMM386.  Doing so will result in unexpected behavior after you load SQLPME and SQL*Net.


Translation Builder Quick Tour

The Quick Tour is a great place to start learning about Translation Builder because it provides a conceptual overview of the product. If the Quick Tour is not displaying right now, it probably means that you didn't install it or you installed it somewhere other than the default location.

To return to the help system, click the Help Topics button in this window.


Documentation roadmap

Translation Builder includes a comprehensive online help system that provides conceptual, reference, and instructional topics.

To get started and become proficient with Translation Builder:

1	Review the Quick Tour for a brief overview of Translation Builder and other Forms Developer and Reports Developer components:

•	Choose Help [image] Quick Tour.

2	Access the online/hardcopy manuals:

•	Choose Help [image] Manuals.

3	Locate help topics:

•	For the table of contents and index, choose Help [image] Help Topics.

•	For context-sensitive help, press [Help] (this is usually the F1 key on most platforms).


Examples

  Alphabetic List

National Language Support examples


What is Translation Builder?

  Related Topics

Translation Builder is a tool for supporting and managing the translation of text in an application's user interface.

You can use Translation Builder to translate applications into many languages. For a list of the languages supported by Translation Builder, refer to Supported languages and default character sets. Translation Builder:

•	enables the simultaneous release of multilingual applications.

•	can be used to translate an application from any language to any language.

•	has the same user interface for any resource file.

•	can reuse previous translations.

•	uses a single repository mechanism for translation management.

Translation Builder supports the translation of the following file types:

File type extension	File type description
.FMB	Form Builder form file
.MMB	Form Builder menu file
.RDF	Report Builder file, which is created using Reports Developer
.RES	Toolkit resource file
.OGD	Graphics Builder file
.MSG	Message file
.RC	Windows resource file


Why use Translation Builder?

  Related Topics

For organizations that deploy applications to a global market, it is very important to be able to provide localized versions of those applications. Translation Builder enables you to accomplish this task in an efficient, cost-effective way. For example, Translation Builder:

•	uses an Oracle database as the translation repository, enabling you to manage large and complex translations.

•	organizes translations into projects (the application being translated) and modules (the individual application files, e.g. .FMBs) to further simplify the management of translations.

•	extracts translatable strings from the application files, so translators do not need to have any knowledge or training in the application development environment.

•	reuses previous translations as glossaries, so:

•	it is quick and easy to upgrade to new versions of applications and files by pre-translating strings that have already been translated.

•	translators can look up possible translations for a string.

•	provides batch processing for both the import and export of strings, significantly reducing the time taken to translate multiple files.

•	includes an easy to use Editor, with the same interface regardless of the type of file the strings were imported from.

•	merges translated strings back into the original source for .FMB, .RDF, .OGD, and .RES files, keeping the number of files to monitor and maintain to a minimum.


Translation Builder architecture

  Related Topics

Translation Builder extracts translatable strings from the application file and stores them in an Oracle database. The Navigator enables you to view and manipulate your translation projects. The Editor provides an easy to use tool for the actual translation of the imported strings. After the translation is complete, Translation Builder retrieves the translated strings from the database and exports them back into the application files.

The most important features of Translation Builder’s architecture are as follows:

•	The user interface is independent of the database character set. For example, if you need to translate a given module from English to Chinese, it is not required that the database support the Chinese character set. Note however that to display the text you must use an appropriate font. For example to display Chinese text, you must use a font that is capable of displaying Chinese text.

•	On Windows NT 4.0, you can change fonts to any language independent of the language of the operating system, if the fonts are available.

•	Modules can be translated from any language to any language. Once a given language translation is complete, the translation can be used as a base for further translations. For example, consider a module in English that needs to be translated to both Traditional and Simplified Chinese. Once the module has been translated to the first dialect, the subsequent translation will be much quicker (and less expensive) than having to retranslate from English.

•	Translation Builder is available on the Windows 95 and NT platforms. The Oracle RDBMS is available on multiple platforms, including Windows and UNIX. This allows operation of Translation Builder in both client/server and standalone configurations. The translations themselves are portable across multiple platforms: you can use Translation Builder on Windows NT to translate sources or messages for UNIX.


About translation databases

  Related Topics

The translation database is the local or remote Oracle database where the strings imported from the source files and the translations of those strings are stored. The translation database also holds information about the relationships between translation projects, modules and versions.

When you use Translation Builder, you must first create a connection to a translation database.


About translation projects

  Related Topics

Translation of user interface text often involves hundreds of files. Organizing and monitoring these files is a tedious and laborious process, which can lead to costly errors such as misplaced files or incorrect translations. Translation Builder uses translation projects to efficiently organize and monitor translation files.

A translation project corresponds to the application being translated. Projects are stored in the translation database and are broken down as follows:

•	modules

•	versions

•	translations


About modules

  Related Topics

A translation project contains one or more modules. A module corresponds to an individual file in the application being translated, for example an .FMB or an .RDF file. A module has one or more versions.


About versions

  Related Topics

A module has one or more versions. A version is simply a label, a number, or a date used to distinguish different releases. One example of a versioning scheme is Alpha, Beta, and Production. Another example is January_release, February_release, and March_release. It is recommended that you use the same versioning scheme for all the modules in a translation project. Each version can be translated into multiple languages.

Translation Builder does not provide version control capabilities.


About the translation process

  Related Topics

If you plan to use Translation Builder to translate your application, develop the application using the following process:

First:

	Create the file or files, for example .FMB, in the base language.
Then use Translation Builder to:

	Translation Builder extracts translatable strings from the source file or files and imports them into the translation database.
	Adding a translation indicates which language a file is to be translated into.
	Translate the imported strings into the desired language.
	If the original file supports multiple languages (.FMB, .RDF, .OGD, .RES), Translation Builder merges the translations back into the original file.
Then:

	Set NLS_LANG to the appropriate language and preview the translation using the appropriate tool (e.g. Form Builder).
	Set NLS_LANG to the appropriate language and use the appropriate tool to generate an executable version of the file (e.g. .FMX).


About design considerations

  Related Topics

Translation Builder helps you translate menus, boilerplate text, item labels, messages, and hints defined on item property sheets. There are, however, many other things you need to consider when you design multilingual applications, for example:

•	design of format masks

•	choice of character set

•	sorting of character data

•	screen design

•	translation of string constants in PL/SQL triggers and procedures

For more information on designing multilingual applications, refer to Designing Multilingual Applications in the online manual Guidelines for Building Applications (Help [image] Manuals).


Preparing for translation

  Restrictions	  Related Topics

To prepare for translation:

1	Before you use Translation Builder, you must install the Translation Builder tables in your translation database.  Note

2	If you are working with a multibyte language (for example, Japanese), you may need to install the correct fonts for that language.


This task is necessary even if you have installed the tables from a previous version of Oracle Translation Manager. You cannot migrate data from previous versions of Oracle Translation Manager unless you install the Translation Builder tables.


Installing fonts

  Related Topics

To install fonts on Windows NT:

1	Point your Web browser at the following location:

http://www.microsoft.com/msdownload/ieplatform/lang/lang.htm

2	Select the appropriate language from the drop-down list.

3	Download the file.


Building a translation: an overview

  Related Topics

The procedure for building a translation using Translation Builder is as follows:

	Create a connection to a translation database
	Create a translation project
	Import strings
	Add a translation
	Translate strings
	Export strings


About batch processing

  Related Topics

Applications often consist of hundreds of files, therefore Translation Builder offers a batch processing feature that enables you to perform certain operations on more than one file at a time. Batch processing is provided for the following operations:

•	Importing strings. You can only import strings from files in the same directory.

•	Adding a translation.

•	Exporting strings. You can only export strings to files in the same directory.


Creating a connection to a translation database

  Next Step	  Related Topics

To create a connection to a translation database:

1	Choose File [image] New [image] DB Connection.

2	Type your User Name, Password and the name of the translation Database you want to connect to.  Note

3	(Optional)  If you want to save the password check the Save Password check box. If you do not check this check box, you will have to provide the password each time you open the translation database.

4	Click OK to connect to and open the translation database. The name of the translation database is displayed in the left panel of the Navigator. A plus sign ( [image]) to the left of the database name indicates that you can now expand the node to display existing translation projects.


When you create a connection to a translation database, enter the database host name even if you are connecting to a local database so that Translation Builder can retrieve the full connect string.


Opening a translation database

  Next Step	  Related Topics

To open a translation database:

1	In the Navigator, click the translation database.

2	If you did not choose to save the password when you created the connection to the database, you will be prompted to enter the connection password. A plus sign ( [image]) to the left of the database name indicates that you can now expand the node to display existing translation projects.


Creating a translation project

  Next Step	  Related Topics

To create a translation project:

1	In the Navigator, click the Translation Projects node.

2	Choose File [image] New [image] Project.

3	Type a name for the project in the Project Name text box.  Note

4	Set the Base Language Name and Base Character Set to the language and character set used when the application files were created.

5	Click OK. The new project is added below the Translation Projects node.


The maximum length for a project name is 30 characters.


Importing strings

  Next Step	  Related Topics

To import strings:

1	In the Navigator, click the Modules node.

2	Click [image] in the toolbar, or choose Module [image] Import Strings.

3	The Base Language and Character Set are defaulted to the language and character set that you specified for the project. You can change these default settings if necessary.

4	Type a new version in the Version combo box. You can use the drop-down list to ensure that you are consistent with the versioning scheme for the project.  Note

5	Click Browse to select the file or files you want to translate. You can import strings from more than one file at a time. Note

6	When you have finished selecting the files, click Open. The files you selected will be listed in the From text box. To remove a file from the list in the From text box, select the file and click Remove.

7	Click OK to extract the translatable strings from the source file and store them in the translation database. The module and version are added below the Modules node.


Note 1  You cannot import strings into an existing version of a module.

Note 2  The maximum length for a version name is 30 characters.


Note 1  If you want to import strings from more than one file, the files should be stored in the same directory in your file system.

Note 2  If you are importing strings from more than one file, the strings will be imported into the same version of each module.


Adding a translation

  Next Step	  Related Topics

To add a translation:

1	In the Navigator, click the module you want to add a translation for, or to add translations for more than one module click the Modules node.

2	Click [image] in the toolbar, or choose Module [image] Add Translation.

3	The Base Language and Base Character Set are defaulted to the language and character set specified for the project. You can change these default settings if necessary.

4	Choose the Version of the module or modules that you want to translate.

5	The Modules text box lists the module you selected or, if you selected the Modules node all the modules in the project. If there is a module for which you do not want to add a translation, select that module and click Remove.  Note

6	Set the Translation Language and Translation Character Set to the language and character set you want to use for the translation.

7	If you have already translated a module into the selected language, you can attach that translation to the project for Translation Builder to use to automatically translate strings. If you do not want to make use of the attached translations, uncheck the Reuse Attached Glossary check box (this check box is checked by default).  Note

8	Click OK. Select the module version in the left panel of the Navigator to display the translation in the right panel.


If you are adding a translation for more than one module, the translation will be added to the same version of each module.


Note 1  Translation Builder can only reuse previous translations if they have been attached as glossaries to the current project.

Note 2  Translation Builder only reuses translations with a translation status of 'Done'.


Translating strings

  Next Step	  Related Topics

To translate strings:

1	Display the translation in the right panel of the Navigator by clicking the module version in the left panel.

2	Double-click the translation.

3	Choose the Base Language and Character Set to be used in the Editor. The base language can be the base language specified when you imported the strings, or any language for which a completed translation exists.

4	Click OK to open the Editor. If you chose to reuse attached glossaries when you added the translation, Translation Builder may have already translated some of the strings.

5	Translate the strings. You can:

•	change the font

•	look up a string in an attached glossary

•	display only strings matching certain criteria in the Editor

•	search for or replace a string

•	change the translation status of a string

6	Click [image] in the toolbar, or choose File [image] Save to save your changes.

7	Choose File [image] Close to close the Editor.


Exporting strings

  Next Step	  Related Topics

To export strings:

1	In the Navigator, click the appropriate translation, version or module. If you want to export more than one module click the Modules node.

2	Click [image] in the toolbar, or choose Module [image] Export Strings.

3	If necessary, choose the Version from the drop-down list.

4	The Modules text box lists the module you selected, or if you selected the Modules node all the modules in the project. If there is a module for which you do not want to export strings, select the module and click Remove.  Note

5	If necessary, choose the Translation Language and Character Set.

6	Type the directory containing the files to which you want to export the strings in the To text box. You can use the Browse button to help you locate the directory if necessary.  Note

7	Click OK. All translation strings are exported regardless of translation status.


If you are exporting strings for more than one module, the strings will be exported from the same version of each module.


If you are exporting strings for more than one module, the files you are exporting the strings to must be in the same directory.


Closing a translation database

  Related Topics

To close a translation database:

1	In the Navigator, click the translation database.

2	There are several ways of closing a translation database:

•	Choose File [image] Close.

•	Choose File [image] Exit to exit Translation Builder. Exiting Translation Builder closes all open databases.

•	Click [image] in the toolbar, or choose Edit [image] Delete to delete the database connection.  Note


About attached glossaries

  Related Topics

When you translate a string, the translation is stored in the translation database. These stored translations are referred to as 'translation memory'. You can use translation memory to reuse previous translations, thus avoiding having to translate strings that have already been translated.

Note  Translation Builder only reuses translation strings with a translation status of 'Done'.

For example, if you are translating a new release of an application that has already been translated using Translation Builder, you can use the previous translation as a starting point. As contract translators typically charge by the word, this ability to reuse previous translations provides considerable cost savings. Reusing translations also enables faster delivery of localized applications.

You reuse previous translations by specifying attached glossaries for a project. An attached glossary is a database, project, module, or version that has been dragged and dropped into the Attached Glossaries folder of a project.

There are two ways of using attached glossaries:

•	When adding a translation, you can choose to use the attached glossaries to pre-translate any strings that have already been translated.

•	When translating strings in the Editor, you can use the glossary look up to find possible translations for a selected string.

Note  You do not 'create' glossaries; you select previous translations to be used as attached glossaries.


Attaching a glossary to a project

  Related Topics

To attach a glossary to a project:

1	In the Navigator, click the translation database, translation project, module, version, or other attached glossary that you want to use as an attached glossary.

2	With the mouse button held down, move the cursor over the Attached Glossaries node of the project that you want to attach the glossary to.

3	Release the mouse button.


Pre-translating strings using attached glossaries

  Related Topics

To pre-translate strings using attached glossaries:

1	Attach the glossaries you want to use to the project.

2	When you add the translation, make sure the Reuse Attached Glossary check box is checked.

Note  Translation Builder only uses translation strings in the attached glossaries with a translation status of 'Done'.


Looking up translations from attached glossaries

  Related Topics

To look up translations from attached glossaries:

1	In the Editor, select the string for which you want to look up possible translations.  Note

2	If the Glossary Look up dialog box is not already displayed, choose Edit [image] Glossary Look Up.

If the Glossary Look up dialog box is already displayed, click Look up Selection.

3	A list of possible translations is provided. Click the desired translation and edit if necessary.  Note

4	Click Replace.

Note  Translation Builder only uses translation strings in the attached glossaries with a translation status of 'Done'.


You must select a string in the Translation panel (right panel) of the Editor.


If you select a partial string, the lookup will only be performed on that partial string.


Checking a translated application

  Next Step	  Related Topics

To check a translated application:

1	Set NLS_LANG to the appropriate language, territory and character set. For example if you want to check an application you have translated into German, you might set NLS_LANG to:

GERMAN_GERMANY.WE8ISO8859P1

2	Open each translated file in the appropriate tool. For example to check the translation of an .FMB file, open the file in Form Builder.

3	If the file is translated to your satisfaction, use the appropriate tool to generate an executable version. Otherwise, return to Translation Builder to continue translating the file.


Running a translated application

  Related Topics

To run a translated application:

1	Set NLS_LANG to the appropriate language, territory and character set. For example if you want to run an application you have translated into German, you might set NLS_LANG to:

GERMAN_GERMANY.WE8ISO8859P1

2	Open each translated file in the appropriate tool, for example if the file is an .FMB file, open it in Form Builder.

3	Generate an executable version of each file, for example an .FMX file.

4	Run the executable file by double-clicking it in Microsoft Windows Explorer.


About the Navigator

  Related Topics

The Navigator provides a hierarchical view of the objects in all open translation database connections. It consists of two panels. The left panel contains your translation databases, translation projects, modules, attached glossaries, and versions in outline form. You can expand any object by clicking the plus sign ( [image]) to the left of it. The right panel displays the children of the object selected in the left panel.

The status area at the bottom of the main Translation Builder window displays the name of the currently selected node or object.

In the Navigator you can:

•	create a translation database connection.

•	create a translation project.

•	import strings, add translations, and export strings.

•	attach a glossary to a project. Attached glossaries enable you to reuse translations you have already built.

•	delete a project, module, version, translation, or attached glossary.  Note

•	delete, or close a translation database connection.  Note

•	copy a module from one project to another project using drag and drop.

•	copy a project from one translation database to another translation database using drag and drop.

•	change the order of the attached glossaries in a project using drag and drop. The order of the attached glossaries specifies the order in which the glossaries are searched when you use the glossary lookup.

•	launch the translation Editor by double-clicking on a translation in the right panel.


About expanding and collapsing nodes

  Related Topics

When you first open Translation Builder, only the translation database nodes are visible in the Navigator. Once you have opened a translation database, you have access to the projects stored in it. A plus sign ( [image]) to the left of a node in the Navigator signifies that the node contains hidden subobjects (i.e. the object is collapsed). A minus sign ( [image]) signifies that all subobjects are visible (i.e. the object is expanded).


About pop-up menus

  Related Topics

Pop-up menus provide a convenient alternative to the menu bar. For example, you can create a new translation project by clicking the Translation Projects node in the Navigator and then choosing File [image] New [image] Project from the menu bar:

Alternatively, you can create a project by right-clicking the Translation Projects node and then choosing New [image] Project from the pop-up menu:


Deleting an object

  Related Topics

To delete an object:

1	In the Navigator, click the object.

2	Choose Edit [image] Delete or click [image] in the toolbar.

Note  Once you have deleted an object, you cannot undo the deletion.


Once you have deleted an object, you cannot undo the deletion.


Expanding a node

  Related Topics

To expand a node:

  Click the plus sign ( [image]) to the left of the node.


Collapsing a node

  Related Topics

To collapse a node:

  Click the minus sign ( [image]) to the left of the node. Collapsing a node also collapses any expanded children of that node.


About the Editor

  Related Topics

The Editor is where you translate imported strings. It consists of two panels. Base strings are displayed in the left panel and translation strings are displayed in the right panel. Translation strings are editable; base strings are not. The translation status icon is displayed to the right of each translation string. The translation status is also displayed in the status area of the main Translation Builder window, along with the number of the translation string and the total number of translation strings:

In the Editor you can:

•	translate strings.

•	display only those strings that meet specified criteria.

•	search for or replace a string.

•	change the font.

•	look up words from the attached glossaries.

•	change the translation status of a string.


About translation status

  Related Topics

When you translate a string in the Editor, the status of the translation string is indicated by an icon to the right of the string. The status of a translation string can be any one of the following:

•	  Start means that the translation string has not been edited.

•	  Revision Needed means that the translation string has been edited but may need further editing.

•	  Done means that the translation string needs no further editing.

When a string is selected in the Editor, the translation status is also displayed in the status area of the main Translation Builder window.


Querying for strings

  Related Topics

To query for strings:

1	With the Editor open, click [image] in the toolbar, or choose Edit [image] Query.

2	Choose the status of the strings you want to query for in the Status field.

3	Type the string you want to query for in the Query for String field.

4	Click the Base or Translation radio button to indicate whether you want to query within base strings or translation strings.

5	Click OK.

6	To re-display the complete set of strings, choose Edit [image] Undo Query.


Searching for and replacing a string

  Related Topics

To search for and replace a string:

1	With the Editor open, click [image] in the toolbar, or choose Edit [image] Search/Replace.

2	Type the string you are searching for in the Search field.

3	If you want to replace the Search string with another string, type it in the Replace with field.

4	Click Find Next.

5	When the Search string is found, click Replace to replace it with the Replace with string.

6	To find the next occurrence of the Search string, click Find Next.

7	When you have finished searching, click Close.

Note  You can only replace translation strings.


Changing the font in the Editor

  Related Topics

To change the base language font:

1	With the Editor open, choose Edit [image] Change Base Font.

2	Choose the Font, Font style, Size, and Script.

3	Click OK.

To change the translation language font:

1	With the Editor open, choose Edit [image] Change Translation Font.

2	Choose the Font, Font style, Size, and Script.

3	Click OK.


Changing the translation status of a string

  Related Topics

To change the translation status of a string:

  In the Editor, click the status icon to the right of the translation string.


About the base language and character set

  Related Topics

The base language and the base character set are the language and character set settings of NLS_LANG at the time the source file (for example, .FMB) was created. You must know these settings for every source file you translate with Translation Builder.


Supported languages and default character sets

  Related Topics

Translation Builder supports the following languages:

Language	Default character set
American	WE8ISO8859P1
Arabic	AR8MSWIN1256
Bengali	BN8BSCII
Brazilian Portuguese	WE8ISO8859P1
Bulgarian	CL8MSWIN1251
Canadian French	WE8ISO8859P1
Catalan	WE8ISO8859P1
Croatian	EE8MSWIN1250
Czech	EE8MSWIN1250
Danish	WE8ISO8859P1
Dutch	WE8ISO8859P1
Egyptian	AR8MSWIN1256
English	WE8ISO8859P1
Estonian	BLT8MSWIN1257
Finnish	WE8ISO8859P1
French	WE8ISO8859P1
German	WE8ISO8859P1
German DIN	WE8ISO8859P1
Greek	EL8MSWIN1253
Hebrew	IW8MSWIN1255
Hungarian	EE8MSWIN1250
Icelandic	WE8ISO8859P1
Indonesian	WE8ISO8859P1
Italian	WE8ISO8859P1
Japanese	JA16SJIS
Korean	KO16KSC5601
Latin American Spanish	WE8ISO8859P1
Latvian	BLT8MSWIN1257
Lithuanian	BLT8MSWIN1257
Malay	WE8ISO8859P1
Mexican Spanish	WE8ISO8859P1
Norwegian	WE8ISO8859P1
Polish	EE8MSWIN1250
Portuguese	WE8ISO8859P1
Romanian	EE8MSWIN1250
Russian	CL8MSWIN1251
Simplified Chinese	ZHS16CGB231280
Slovak	EE8MSWIN1250
Slovenian	EE8MSWIN1250
Spanish	WE8ISO8859P1
Swedish	WE8ISO8859P1
Thai	TH8TISASCII
Traditional Chinese	ZHT16BIG5
Turkish	TR8MSWIN1254
Ukrainian	CL8MSWIN1251
Vietnamese	VN8VN3


Bengali
Microsoft Windows does not support Bengali. To display Bengali, you must install a Bengali subsystem.


About NLS_LANG

  Related Topics

For more information about NLS_LANG, refer to The NLS_LANG environment variable.


Setting NLS_LANG

  Related Topics

To set NLS_LANG:

1	From the Microsoft Windows Start Menu, choose Run.

2	Type 'regedit' and click OK to open the Registry Editor.

3	Expand the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE node, then expand the SOFTWARE node.

4	Click ORACLE to display the Oracle environment variables in the right panel of the Registry Editor.

5	Double-click the NLS_LANG environment variable.

6	Type the new value for NLS_LANG in the Value data text box and click OK.


How do I create a glossary?

  Related Topics

You do not actually 'create' glossaries. Instead, you use previous translations as glossaries.

To use a previous translation as a glossary, you simply use drag and drop to place the translation database, translation project, module, version, or attached glossary that contains the translation you want to use in the Attached Glossaries folder of the project you want to use it with. You can then use the previous translation when adding translations of the same language to pre-translate strings. You can also use previous translations to look up suggested translations for strings in the Editor.


Keep the Glossary Look up dialog box open in the Editor

  Related Topics

When you are translating strings in the Editor, leave the Glossary Look up dialog box open so that you do not have to invoke it every time you want to look up a translation.


Select multiple files

  Related Topics

When importing strings, hold down the Ctrl or Shift key to select multiple files in the Select Files dialog box.


Specify the correct character set when importing strings

  Related Topics

The character set that you specify in the Import Strings dialog box must be the same as the character set used to create the file from which you are importing the strings.


Where can I find NLS_LANG?

  Related Topics

NLS_LANG is an Oracle environment variable that specifies the language used by Oracle products.

Oracle environment variables are contained in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ORACLE section of the Microsoft Windows Registry.You can view or edit the Registry by using the Registry Editor supplied with Windows.


Why can't I specify a file name to export translated strings to?

  Related Topics

When exporting strings, you cannot specify a file name to export to. If the file type supports multiple languages, the strings are exported back to the original source file. Otherwise, a copy of the source file is created, but with the original strings replaced with the translations.

The source file must be stored in the directory specified in the Export Strings dialog box. If Translation Builder cannot find the source file in the specified directory, the strings will not be exported.


Why won't the translation database open?

  Related Topics

If the translation database is already selected when you click on it, the database will not open. To open the database, first click somewhere else in the Navigator and then click the translation database.


Translation Builder error messages

Click a message range, then use the browse buttons to find the message you are looking for.

NX-00103 through NX-00403:  NX API messages

XBD-00010 through XBD-00200:  General messages

XBD-00201 through XBD-00300:  Connection messages

XBD-00301 through XBD-00400:  Project messages

XBD-00401 through XBD-00500:  Module messages

XBD-00501 through XBD-00600:  Version messages

XBD-00601 through XBD-00700:  Translation messages

XBD-00701 through XBD-00800:  Glossary messages

XBD-00801 through XBD-00900:  Attached Glossary messages

XBD-00901 through XBD-01000:  Editor messages

XBD-01001 through XBD-01100:  OCI messages


NX-00103:  File open error

 Cause:	The file does not exist or you do not have sufficient privileges.

 Action:	Make sure the file exists and check the privileges.


NX-00104:  File close error

 Cause:	You are out of disk space or you do not have sufficient privileges.

 Action:	Check the disk space and check the privileges.


NX-00105:  File read error

 Cause:	The file is corrupted or the file is open.

 Action:	Check to see if the file is open.


NX-00106:  File write error

 Cause:	You are out of disk space or you do not have sufficient privileges.

 Action:	Check the disk space and check the privileges.


NX-00108:  Token too long

 Cause:	The token name exceeded the buffer limit.

 Action:	Choose another name for the token.


NX-00213:  DB resource busy

 Cause:	The resource was locked by another process.

 Action:	Try again when the resource is released.


NX-00214:  DB no data found

 Cause:	No more data is available.

 Action:	No action.


NX-00215:  DB unique constraint violated

 Cause:	You tried to insert data which violates a unique constraint.

 Action:	Check your data for uniqueness.


NX-00403:  Language or character set does not match

 Cause:	Translation Builder cannot find the matching language or character set in the source file.

 Action:	Pick the correct language or character set.


XBD-00010:  This langcode:  %1, has no language name mapping.

 Cause:	The language code is an invalid Oracle language code.

 Action:	Use a valid language code.


XBD-00011:  %1, resource is busy.

 Cause:	The resource is locked.

 Action:	Try again when the lock is released.


XBD-00012:  %1, resource locking error.

 Cause:	The resource is locked.

 Action:	Try again when the lock is released.


XBD-00013:  Get sequence ID failed.

 Cause:	You have run out of sequence numbers or the table is corrupted.

 Action:	Check the sequence table.


XBD-00014:  %1, resource is not available for locking.

 Cause:	The resource is already locked.

 Action:	Try again when the lock is released.


XBD-00015:  %1, rollback failed.

 Cause:	Database error.

 Action:	See your database administrator.


XBD-00016:  This langname:  %1, has no language code mapping.

 Cause:	The language is not supported by Oracle.

 Action:	Use a valid language name.


XBD-00017:  Unable to run %1 utility.

 Cause:	The utility executable doesn't exist.

 Action:	Make sure all the necessary executables exist.


XBD-00018:  %1, does not exist.

 Cause:	The query returned no rows.

 Action:	No action necessary.


XBD-00019:  %1, delete error.

 Cause:	The object cannot be deleted.

 Action:	There may be a lock on the object.  If so, remove the lock.


XBD-00020:  String:  %1, commit failed.

 Cause:	Database commit error.

 Action:	See your database administrator.


XBD-00021:  Node:  %1, commit failed.

 Cause:	Database commit error.

 Action:	See your database administrator.


XBD-00022:  Delete failed.

 Cause:	Internal error.

 Action:	See your database administrator.


XBD-00023:  No rows returned.

 Cause:	The query returned no rows.

 Action:	No action necessary.


XBD-00024:  Translation Builder tables not found.

 Cause:	Translation Builder tables have not been installed.

 Action:	Go to the Forms Developer Administration program group, double-click on the Translation Builder tables icon, and enter the appropriate connect string.


XBD-00025:  Wrong filename:  Failed to locate browser.

 Cause:	The selected browser does not exist.

 Action:	Choose a correct browser or re-install your browser.


XBD-00026:  Cannot load Quick Tour file.

 Cause:	The Quick Tour files are missing.

 Action:	Re-install your Quick Tour files.


XBD-00027:  Message file not found.

 Cause:	The message file is missing.

 Action:	Re-install your message file.


XBD-00028:  Cannot load manuals file.

 Cause:	The manual file is missing.

 Action:	Re-install your manual file.


XBD-00029:  You need to fill in both username and password.

 Cause:	Either username or password is missing.

 Action:	Type in both username and password.


XBD-00030:  Please close all editors before closing session.

 Cause:	You tried to close the Navigator session node while an editor is still up.

 Action:	Close all the editors before closing the Navigator session node.


XBD-00031:  Please make a selection in the editor.

 Cause:	You invoked the Glossary Lookup dialog box from the Editor without selecting a phrase in the Editor, or you clicked the Lookup Selection button in the Glossary Lookup dialog box without selecting a phrase in the Editor.

 Action:	Select a phrase in the Editor and try again.


XBD-00201:  %1, connection exists already.

 Cause:	The same connection already exists.

 Action:	No action necessary.


XBD-00202:  No connection.

 Cause:	There is no connection to disconnect.

 Action:	No action necessary.


XBD-00203:  Unable to remove Oracle Lite database:  %1 from file system.

 Cause:	Insufficient privilege.

 Action:	Check privilege on disk.


XBD-00204:  Failed to create POLite database:  %1.

 Cause:	Insufficient privilege.

 Action:	Check privilege on disk.


XBD-00205:  Confusing connection string.

 Cause:	Incorrect database connection string.

 Action:	Create a new one and remove this one.


XBD-00207:  Failed to connect %1.  Your password might be invalid or your database is down.

 Cause:	Your password is invalid or your database is down.

 Action:	Check password and database status.


XBD-00301:  Project:  %1, insertion failed.

 Cause:	Database insert error.

 Action:	See your database administrator.


XBD-00302:  No project match.

 Cause:	The project does not exist.

 Action:	Try another project.


XBD-00303:  Project:  %1, commit failed.

 Cause:	Database commit error.

 Action:	See your database administrator.


XBD-00304:  Project %1, rollback failed.

 Cause:	Database rollback error.

 Action:	See your database administrator.


XBD-00305:  Projects fetch error in %1.

 Cause:	Database problem.

 Action:	Check to see if database is down.


XBD-00401:  Module:  %1, insertion failed.

 Cause:	Database insert error.

 Action:	See your database administrator.


XBD-00402:  Module:  %1, commit failed.

 Cause:	Database commit error.

 Action:	See your database administrator.


XBD-00403:  Module:  %1, rollback failed.

 Cause:	Database rollback error.

 Action:	See your database administrator.


XBD-00501:  Version:  %1, insertion failed.

 Cause:	Database insert error.

 Action:	See your database administrator.


XBD-00502:  Version:  %1, commit failed.

 Cause:	Database commit error.

 Action:	See your database administrator.


XBD-00503:  Version:  %1, rollback failed.

 Cause:	Database rollback error.

 Action:	See your database administrator.


XBD-00601:  %1 insertion failed.

 Cause:	Database insert error.

 Action:	See your database administrator.


XBD-00602:  Translation resource is busy.

 Cause:	Translation is locked by another user.

 Action:	Try again when the translation is unlocked.


XBD-00603:  Translation resource locking error.

 Cause:	The resource is already locked by another user.

 Action:	Try again when the lock is released.


XBD-00604:  Translation resource is not available for locking.

 Cause:	The resource is already locked by another user.

 Action:	Try again when the lock is released.


XBD-00605:  Translation:  %1, commit failed.

 Cause:	Database commit error.

 Action:	See your database administrator.


XBD-00606:  Translation:  %1, rollback failed.

 Cause:	Database rollback error.

 Action:	See your database administrator.


XBD-00607:  Translation:  %1, exists.

 Cause:	The translation exists.

 Action:	Add another translation or another version.


XBD-00609:  %1, no translation base exists.

 Cause:	The base translation does not exist.

 Action:	Create the base translation.


XBD-00610:  %1,  No translation target exists.

 Cause:	The target translation does not exist.

 Action:	Make sure you have the translation to export.


XBD-00611:  %1, Translation strings export failed.

 Cause:	The target file does not exist or is corrupted.

 Action:	Make sure you use the correct file.


XBD-00612:  Translation strings are not updatable because the base and translation language is the same.

 Cause:	Your translation and base are the same language and character set.

 Action:	Use different base for your translation to bring up the editor.


XBD-00701:  Failed to connect to glossary database.

 Cause:	The database is down or there is a network problem.

 Action:	Make sure the database is up and check your network configuration.


XBD-00801:  Attached Glossary:  %1, rollback failed.

 Cause:	Database rollback error.

 Action:	See your database administrator.


XBD-00802:  Attached glossary:  %1, commit failed.

 Cause:	Database commit error.

 Action:	See your database administrator.


XBD-00803:  Attached glossary:  %1, fetch failed.  This glossary does not exist.

 Cause:	The glossary does not exist or the database with this glossary is down.

 Action:	Check the status of the database and check the existence of the glossary.


XBD-00804:  This entry already exists.

 Cause:	The object has already been created.

 Action:	No action necessary.


XBD-00805:  Attached glossary:  %1, connect failed!  One of your databases may be down.  Check your connection.

 Cause:	Database is down.

 Action:	Check the connection.


XBD-00901:  Editor open document failed.

 Cause:	The resource is locked.

 Action:	Try again when the lock is released.


XBD-00902:  Editor connection error.

 Cause:	Database is down or there is a network problem.

 Action:	Check the database status and the network configuration.


XBD-00903:  String is not updatable.

 Cause:	The base and translation are the same language or the string's status is Translation Done.

 Action:	Change the string status or use different base to bring up the editor.


XBD-01001:  Delete node error.

 Cause:	Database error.

 Action:	See your database administrator.


XBD-01002:  Node Prepare SQL error.

 Cause:	Database error.

 Action:	See your database administrator.


XBD-01003:  Node SQL Transaction error

 Cause:	Database error.

 Action:	See your database administrator.


XBD-01004:  String Prepare SQL error

 Cause:	Database error.

 Action:	See your database administrator.


XBD-01005:  Delete String error

 Cause:	Database error.

 Action:	See your database administrator.


XBD-01006:  String SQL Transaction error

 Cause:	Database error.

 Action:	See your database administrator.


Attached glossaries do not work

  Related Topics

Problem:  I have glossaries attached to my project, but when I add a translation of the same language or use the glossary look up, the translations in the attached glossaries are not found.

Solution:  (1) Translation Builder only reuses translations that are completed. Make sure the translations you want to use as attached glossaries are complete and change the translation status to 'Done'.

(2) When a glossary is attached to a project, the full connection details are stored in the database as username/password@database_alias. As database aliases are stored locally in the TNSNAMES.ORA file, if you use a different alias for the database from the person who attached the glossary, the glossary will not work. To solve this problem you need to make sure that everyone involved in translating an application uses the same alias for the translation database.


Glossary lookup doesn't search for the complete phrase

  Related Topics

Problem:  The glossary lookup is only searching for a fragment of the phrase I want to find a translation for.

Solution:  You may have only selected a fragment of the phrase in the Editor. Without closing the Glossary Look up dialog box, select the whole phrase in the Editor and click Look up Selection.


Objects are not displayed in the Navigator

  Related Topics

Problem:  I have just imported strings, but the new module and version are not displayed in the Navigator.

Solution:  Sometimes objects are not immediately displayed in the Navigator. Collapse the project node. When you expand the node again the object should now be displayed.


Strings in referenced blocks are not displayed in the Editor

  Related Topics

Problem:  I am translating a form that references a block in another form. When I view the imported strings in the Editor, the strings in the referenced block are not displayed. How to I translate these strings?

Solution:  Strings in the referenced block can be translated when the form containing the referenced block is translated.


The Web site specified for installing fonts does not work

  Related Topics

Problem:  When I used the URL specified for installing fonts:

http://www.microsoft.com/msdownload/ieplatform/lang/lang.htm

my Web browser displayed an error.

Solution:  (1) You may have typed the URL incorrectly. Select the text in the help topic, press Ctrl+C to copy it and Ctrl+V to paste the text into the Address or Location field of your Web browser.

(2) The Web site may no longer exist. Point your Web browser to:

http://www.microsoft.com/

and use the search facility to find the file to download for the language you are working with.


Translated strings are not displayed in the file

  Related Topics

Problem:  I have used Translation Builder to translate my file, but when I try to view the translated strings in the file they are not displayed.

Solution:  For the translations to be displayed, the NLS_LANG environment variable must be set to the appropriate language. Make sure NLS_LANG is set appropriately in the Microsoft Windows registry.


Translation strings are not displayed correctly in the Editor

  Related Topics

Problem:  The translation strings are not displayed correctly in the Editor; some of the characters are not visible or are meaningless.

Solution:  (1) You may be using a font that is not capable of displaying the translation language. To correct this problem choose Edit [image] Change Translation Font and select the correct font. You may need to install the font first.

(2) The translation language may not be supported by Microsoft Windows (for example, Bengali). To correct this problem, install the appropriate language subsystem.


Unable to connect to the translation database

  Related Topics

Problem:  I cannot connect to the translation database.

Solution:  The translation database may be down. Check with the database administrator.


Unable to create a translation project

  Related Topics

Problem:  I am trying to create a translation project and I get an error that says 'Translation Builder tables not found'.

Solution:  The Translation Builder tables are not installed in your translation database. To correct this problem, you must install the Translation Builder tables. To perform this task you must have CONNECT and DBA roles.


Unable to export strings

  Related Topics

Problem:  I cannot export strings back into the source file.

Solution:  (1) The file to which you are trying to export the strings to is read-only. To correct this problem, change the permissions on the file so you can write to it.

(2) The file to which you are trying to export the strings does not exist. To correct this problem, find the correct location of the file.

(3) The specified version of the file does not exist. To correct this problem, select a different version. For example, if a module has an Alpha and a Beta version but no Production version, export the strings to the Alpha or Beta version. If you try to export the strings to the Production version, the export operation fails, even if a Production version is listed in the Export Strings dialog box.


Unable to import strings

  Related Topics

Problem:  I cannot import strings from a file

Solution:  (1) The character set you entered in the Import Strings dialog box is incorrect. To correct this problem, enter the character set specified by the language environment variable (for example NLS_LANG) when the source file was created. For example, if the character set specified by NLS_LANG when the source file was created was WE8ISO8859P1, enter WE8ISO8859P1 in the Import Strings dialog box. If you enter US7ASCII, the import operation fails.

(2) The version of the module you are trying to import strings into already exists. You cannot import strings into an existing module. Change the version and try again.


Unable to migrate data from Oracle Translation Manager 2.5

  Related Topics

Problem: I am trying to migrate my data from Oracle Translation Manager 2.5 and I get an error message that says 'Translation Builder tables not found'.

Solution:  The Translation Builder tables are not installed in your translation database. To correct this problem, you must install the Translation Builder tables. To perform this task, you must have CONNECT and DBA roles.


Select Data Tables dialog box

  Related Topics

Description  The Select Data Tables dialog box enables you to include datasource objects from the connected database into your query.

This dialog box contains:

Show	Specifies whether or not to display tables, views, queries, snapshots, and/or synonyms in the list box.
Drop-down box	Specifies from which datasource to display the objects.  You can also select a table from a separate account or database .
Select Data Tables	Lists the available datasource objects you can include in your query.  Tip
Info	Displays information on the selected object:  the kind, name, owner, date it was created, and comments.
Include	Includes the selected item into the Query Builder workspace.
Close	Closes the dialog box without including a datasource object.


Accessing other accounts in the current database

  Related Topics

To access tables in other accounts in the current database:

1	Click the current database name.  The Include button becomes an Open button, and the list box displays a list of accounts in the current database.

2	Click the name of the account you want to open.

3	Click Open, or simply double-click the account name.  Query Builder displays a list of tables in that account, and the Open button again becomes the Include button, enabling you to include tables in the usual manner.


Opening other accounts

  Related Topics

If the table you want is not listed in the current database, you can navigate to other accounts and databases and select tables from those accounts.

To navigate to other accounts and databases:

1	Click the box above the list of tables.  You will see two selections:  the name of the current database and the word Databases.

2	To access tables in other accounts in the current database, click here.

If you are unable to connect to a listed database, it may be due to an invalid link caused by a network problem or a changed remote password.  Contact your database administrator for assistance.


Including a table more than once

  Related Topics

If you include the same table more than once in a query, duplicate tables are automatically assigned system-generated alias names composed of the name for the base table, followed by an underscore and an alphanumeric sequence.


Select Related Tables dialog box

Description  The Select Related Tables dialog box enables you to include tables that are related to the selected table in the Query window.

This dialog box contains:

Show	This option is not available.
Drop-down box	Specifies whether or not to display all related tables.
Select Data Tables	Lists the available related tables.  Tip
Info	Displays information on the selected table:  the kind, name, owner, date it was created, and comments.
Include	Includes the selected table.
Close	Closes the dialog box without including a related table.


Rename Table dialog box

  Related Topics

Description  The Rename Table dialog box enables you to rename the currently active table.

This dialog box contains:

Default Table Name	Specifies the current name of the table.
List box	Lists the tables you have open to rename.
New Name	Specifies the new table name.
Define	Updates the table name while keeping the dialog box open.


Identifying a renamed table

In a stored query, it is not immediately apparent whether a particular table has a user-defined name or its original name.

To find out if a particular table has been renamed:

1	Click [image] in the Icon bar.

2	Click the table in question in the list of Available Tables.

If the table has been renamed, the alias name appears in the New Name: field and a different name (the original table name) in the Default Table Name: field.

SQL users can also identify renamed tables by clicking [image] in the Icon bar. This brings up the Show SQL dialog box, where any name changes appear in the SELECT statement in standard SQL syntax for table aliases.


Set Relationship dialog box

  Related Topics

Description  The Set Relationship dialog box enables you to create simple, self, composite, unmatched, and non-equal relationships between two tables.

This dialog box contains:

Relationship	Specifies the origin (in A->) and target (in B->) column names.
Operator	Specifies the type of relationship between the columns.
Use Relationship in Query	Specifies if your relationship will be used in the query.  Default is checked.
A not found in B radio button	Specifies that the data retrieved is all data common to both tables, in addition to data that is in table A, but not in table B.
B not found in A radio button	Specifies that the data retrieved is all data common to both tables, in addition to data that is in table B, but not in table A.
Suppress Mismatches radio button	Default.  Specifies that the data retrieved is common for both tables.


About relationships

  Related Topics

A relational database consists of a number of related tables.  Each table is made up of columns (sometimes called fields) which are arranged vertically.  Each column has a name, and contains a unique type of data.

Relationships, or joins, define how a column in one table relates to a column in another table.  In many cases, the relationships you need are already defined in the database.  Relationships also reduce data redundancy.  Whenever there is a relationship between columns in different tables, you can use the tables together in a query.  Note

Related columns do not always share the same names.  You can always relate columns that share the same datatype, and in some instances you can relate columns of different datatypes, if the relationship makes sense.  For example, you can always relate a Number datatype column with a Character column, since a number can also be interpreted as a character.  In fact, almost any column (except long text columns) can be related to Character columns.

Relationships can be user-defined (temporary) or established in the underlying data dictionary  Relationships in the data dictionary automatically appear when you include related tables (tables that have a primary/foreign key relationship).  You do not have to do anything to use these relationships, since they are always valid.  These can be created or modified using the Schema Builder.

User-defined relationships are valid only for the query in which you create them.  Creating a user-defined relationship does not establish a corresponding permanent relationship in the underlying table.  The main difference between the two is that in the case of a user-defined relationship, you must draw the relationship line; in a relationship stored in the database, Query Builder draws it for you.

Note (Report Builder only):  Report Builder data links are not the same as Query Builder relationships.  Data links are created between two or more queries, where Query Builder relationships (or joins) are created within a single query.  For more information, see the Report Builder online help.


Activating and deactivating a relationship

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Relationships that you create using the mouse are automatically activated and deactivated as they are needed in a query.  Active relationships are displayed with a heavy black line; inactive relationships are shown as grey lines.

To manually activate a relationship using the mouse:

  Double-click an inactive relationship line.

To deactivate a relationship:

  Double-click the active relationship line.


Define Column dialog box

Description  The Define Column dialog box enables you to create a new column in your query based on values in another column. Defined columns appear in both the Datasource panel and the Results window.

This dialog box contains:

Defined Columns	Specifies the name of the column you want to create.
List box	Lists existing defined columns.
Defined as	Specifies the expression of the selected column.
Define	Applies the definition to the column.
Remove	Deletes the selected column.
Paste Column	Displays the Paste Column dialog box.
Paste Func	Displays the Paste Function dialog box.
Note:  The defined column is only a part of your query and will not modify the table definition saved in the database.


Sort dialog box

Description  The Sort dialog box enables you to sort the data in your query according to columns in your table.

This dialog box contains:

Available Columns	Lists the table columns you can sort in the Results window.
Sorted Columns	Lists the table columns that are currently sorted in the Results window.
Copy	Copies the selected column from the Available Columns list to the Sorted Columns list.
Remove	Removes the selected column from the Sorted Columns list.
Sorting Order	Sorts the selected column in Ascending or Descending order. Default is Ascending.


Query Builder Help

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Building a new query

Adding conditions to a query

Creating a simple relationship

Defining a column

Sorting query data


About Query Builder

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Query Builder is an easy-to-use data access tool designed for analysts, managers, and other business professionals.  It provides a logical and intuitive means to access information from your organization's databases for analysis and reporting.

Query Builder is designed for professionals who do not have a computer programming or database background.  Because of its powerful query features and its support of Structured Query Language (SQL) statements, experienced database users and programmers will find that Query Builder serves many of their needs as well.

In Query Builder's graphical Query window , you can specify a request for data from your organization's database(s).  The request for data is called a query.

You can use Query Builder to define almost any query that you would build using a SQL SELECT statement.  Query Builder automatically generates the appropriate SELECT FROM [table.column] clause based on columns displayed in the Query Builder workspace.


Column Sequence dialog box

Description  The Column Sequence dialog box enables you to adjust your query results in the Query Builder workspace.

This dialog box contains:

Available Columns	Lists the table columns you can display in the Query Builder workspace.  Tip
Displayed Columns	Lists the table columns that are currently displayed in the Query Builder workspace.
Copy	Copies the selected column from the Available Columns list to the Displayed Columns list.
Remove	Removes the selected column from the Displayed Columns list.
Format	Displays the Format dialog box.
Totals	Displays the Totals dialog box.
Execute	Runs the query.


Paste Column dialog box

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Description  The Paste Column dialog box enables you to paste an existing column from a selected table into your query.

This dialog box contains:

List box	Lists the columns you can paste.  Tip


Paste Function dialog box

Description  The Paste Function dialog box enables you to paste a function into your condition or query.

This dialog box contains:

Show Categories	Specifies the types of functions that display in the list box:  number, character, date, conversion, group, other.
List box	Lists the available functions under the selected category.
Paste Arguments	Specifies whether or not to include the argument (the expression within the parentheses of a function that supplies information for the function to use).


Show SQL dialog box

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The Show SQL dialog box displays the SQL statements for your query thus far. You cannot edit or copy the SQL statements in the Show SQL dialog box.


The column or columns that uniquely identify each row of a table.  Primary keys appear in bold.


A column that refers to the primary key values in another table. Foreign keys appear in italics.


The sources from which a query retrieves data, including tables, views, queries, synonyms, and snapshots.


A datasource made up of columns from one or more database tables combined into one logical table.


A string consisting of a function or operation and the database column(s) to be operated on (for example, SALARY+COMMISSION).


To conform to naming conventions, each query name must begin with a letter and can contain up to 30 letters and numbers.  If you don't use naming conventions when naming database queries, Query Builder will convert the name to a "literal" value (enclosed in double quotes).


About the Conditions panel

The Conditions panel is a section of the Query window that contains the Condition field, where you enter expressions and conditions.  Query Builder conditions automatically generate WHERE or HAVING clauses, as appropriate.

The table and column names indicate which columns will be filtered in the condition.  You may omit the table name if the column name is unique.  Tip

Note:  When you activate the Condition field, the cursor will have  a (+) sign, indicating that any item you click on will be added to your condition.  To deactivate this, you can click [image] in the Icon Bar.


About the Query window

When you open a query, Query Builder displays it in the Query window, split into two panels:

•	the Conditions panel, where the Condition field is located.  It is used to refine the query.

•	the Datasource panel, which displays the tables (views, snapshots, and so forth) used in the query.

Depending on your preferences, the panels may be split vertically or horizontally.

Each table is displayed in a box containing the name of the table and the names of columns in that table.  There are a number of icons that help identify the current database object.  The icons indicate whether descriptive comments are attached, the type of datasource, the column's datatype, and whether indexes have been defined for tables in the query.

Lines are drawn to indicate the relationships between columns.  Relationships are set up between tables to identify how a column in one table relates to a column in another table.

A check mark to the left of the column name indicates the column has been included in the query.  This means that Query Builder will search for data corresponding to the column name when you run the query.  No check mark indicates that column's data will not be included.


About the Datasource panel

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The Datasource panel is the section of the Query window where items, such as tables and relationships, display.


About the Icon Bar

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The Icon Bar displays at the top of the Query Builder window.  Click on each icon to view a description.


Save icon

Saves your query to the specified file.


Cut icon

Cuts the selected text and places it on your operating system's clipboard.


Copy icon

Copies the selected text onto your operating system's clipboard while the original text remains intact.


Paste icon

Pastes the current clipboard items into the active location.  If there is nothing on the clipboard, nothing will be pasted.  You can paste any text that you have cut or copied.


Clear icon

Removes the selected item (i.e., text, table).  Unlike the Cut command, Clear does not place the removed item(s) on your operating system's clipboard.


Select All icon

Selects every item in the active window.  For example, if the Conditions panel is active, all conditions in the panel will be selected.


Select Data Tables icon

Displays the Select Data Tables dialog box.


Select Related Tables icon

Displays the Select Related Tables dialog box.  This icon is available only when the table you have selected has a related table in the connected database.


Rename Table icon

Displays the Rename Table dialog box.  This icon is available only when there is at least one table in the Query Builder workspace.


Get Info icon

Displays the Info dialog box and information on the selected database object.  This icon is available only if a datasource object is active.


Set Table Relationship icon

Displays the Set Relationship dialog box.  This icon is available only when there is more than one table in the Datsource panel to relate.


Show SQL icon

Displays the Show SQL dialog box and the SQL for the active query.


Column Sequence icon

Displays the Display dialog box.


Define Column icon

Displays the Define Column dialog box.


Sort icon

Displays the Sort dialog box.


And icon

Inserts the AND operator into your condition.  This icon is available only when the Condition field is active.  You can also type AND directly into the Condition field.


Or icon

Inserts the OR operator into your condition.  This icon is available only when the Condition field is active.  You can also type OR directly into the Condition field.


Not icon

Inserts the NOT operator into your condition to negate your condition.  This icon is available only when the Condition field is active.  You can also type NOT directly into the Condition field.


Ungroup Conditions icon

Ungroups conditions that are combined with logical operators, such as AND, OR, NOT.  This icon is available only when you have selected a logical operator in the Conditions panel.


Accept icon

Validates and accepts the active condition.  This icon is available only when the Condition field is active.  You can also press the Enter or Return key when the Condition field is active to accept and validate your condition.


Cancel icon

Cancels the current condition.  This icon is available only when the Condition field is active.


Paste Column icon

Displays the Paste Column dialog box.  This icon is available only when the Condition field is active.


Paste Function icon

Displays the Paste Function dialog box.  This icon is available only when the Condition field is active.


About datatypes

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The most common datatypes in Query Builder are:

CHAR or VARCHAR2	CHAR is used for fixed length character data, to a maximum size of 255 bytes and a default size of 1 byte.  VARCHAR2 is for variable length character strings to a maximum size of 2000 bytes.  You must specify size for VARCHAR2.
NUMBER	NUMBER indicates that the database column contains numbers (integers, decimals, or any other type of numeric values).  You can perform calculations on numbers represented in the NUMBER datatype, but not on numbers represented by the CHAR datatype.
DATE	DATE indicates that the database column contains date values.  Valid dates ranging from January 1, 9999 BC to December 31, 9999 AD.  Default format is DD-MON-YY as in '01-JAN-92'.
NUMBER(p,s)	The range of p (decimal precision) is 1 to 38. The range of s (scale) is -84 to 127.  Decimal precision is the number of digits to store.  The scale is the number of digits to the right of the decimal point.  If the scale is negative, the actual data is rounded to the specified number of places to the left of the decimal point.  For example, a specification of (10, -2) means round to the hundreds.
Additionally, Query Builder provides limited support for the following Oracle datatypes:

LONG	A LONG column contains alphanumeric data of variable length up to 2 gigabytes (or 231-1).  When you include a LONG column in a Query Builder query, the first 2000 characters are displayed.
RAW	Raw binary data.  Maximum size is 255 bytes.  Values must be inserted as character strings in hexadecimal notation.  Values are displayed in hexadecimal.  You must specify size for RAW datatypes.
LONG RAW	LONG RAW displays raw binary data up to 2 gigabytes (this appears in hexadecimal in the Results window).  LONG RAW datatypes are subject to the same limits as RAW datatype.
Note:  Query Builder supports datatype conversions in cases where conditions and expressions reference different datatypes in their comparison.  Refer to the Oracle8 Server SQL Language Reference Manual for additional information.


Datatype icons

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The following supported datatypes for all the columns in a datasource object are represented by icons located in the right hand column of the object in the Query Builder workspace.

Datatype	Icon	Description
Character		Use the Character datatype for fixed length character data, to a maximum size of 255 bytes and a default size of 1 byte. Note:  You can represent numbers using the Character datatype, but you can only perform calculations with numeric datatypes.
Varchar2		Use the Varchar2 datatype for variable length character strings, to a maximum size of 2000 bytes.  You must specify a size for the Varchar2 datatype.
Number		Use the Number datatype for integer or floating data. You must enter a precision length (number of digits) for integer data. Floating datatype is for decimal numbers. When you assign this datatype to a column, you must specify both the precision and the scale. The precision (total number of digits in the number) can range from 1 to 38.  The scale (number of digits to the right of the decimal point) can range from -84 to 127.  If the scale is negative, the actual data is rounded to the specified number of places to the left of the decimal point.  For example, a specification of (10,2) means 10 digits with 2 to the right of the decimal point.  A specification of (10,-2) effectively means a 10-digit integer, rounded to the nearest hundred.
Date		Use the Date datatype for any type of date.  Valid dates range from January 1, 4712 BC to December 31,4712 AD.  The default date format is DD-MON-YY, as in ‘01-JAN-97.’
Long		Use the Long datatype for long text fields of alphanumeric data of variable length, up to 2 gigabytes.
Raw		Use the Raw datatype for raw binary data.  The maximum size is 255 bytes.  Values must be inserted as character strings in hexadecimal notation, and values are displayed in hexadecimal.  You must specify a size for raw data.
Long Raw		The Long Raw datatype is for storing up to 2 gigabytes of raw binary data (which is entered and displayed in hexidecimal form).  Long Raw datatypes do not require a specified size.
MLSLABEL		Use the MLSLABEL datatype for storing the binary format of a label used on a secure operating system.  Labels are used by Trusted ORACLE to mediate access to information.  You can also define columns with this datatype if you are using the standard ORACLE Server.  For more information on Trusted ORACLE, including this datatype and labels, see the Trusted ORACLE8 Server Administrator's Guide.


Datasource object notation

  Related Topics

Shown below is an example of two datasource objects, linked by a relationship.

Click any icon, indicator, or part of these objects to display a description.


Object type indicator

The icon in the upper left corner of any datasource object indicates its type:

  Table

  View

  Query

  Snapshot

  Synonym


Object title

This is the name of the datasource object.  You can change the name by clicking on the object title.


Comment indicator

This icon indicates that this object (or column) has a comment associated with it.  Double-click this icon to open the Info dialog box, where you can view the comments.


Column Name

This is the name of one of the columns in this object.  If you double-click a column name, the column will be included in your query.


Datatype indicators

These icons indicate the datatypes of their respective columns. If you click and hold on one of these icons, a pop-up menu appears, and you can choose a different datatype.


Relationship line

A gray line drawn between two columns indicates that a relationship has been created between the columns at either end of the line. The line is drawn from the foreign key to the primary key.


Self-relationship indicator

This icon indicates that a self-relationship has been created between this column (foreign key) and another column (primary key) in the same table.


Primary key

A column name displayed in boldface indicates that this column has been defined as a primary key for the object.


Foreign key

A column name displayed in italics indicates that this column is a foreign key, related to a primary key in another column.  Setting up a relationship between two columns is the only way to define a foreign key.