Oracle9i Discoverer Desktop

Release Notes

Release 2 (9.0.2) for Windows

April 2002

Part No. A96164-01

This document summarizes the differences between Oracle9i Discoverer Desktop and its documented functionality.

See Also: Oracle9i Developer Suite Release Notes

1 Certification and System Requirements

Please see the Oracle9i Developer Suite Installation Guide for details of certification and system requirements.

1.1 Discoverer EUL version

This release of Oracle9i Discoverer Desktop requires a version 5 End User Layer created with Oracle9i Discoverer Administrator 9.0.2 (which is a component of Oracle9i Developer Suite release 2.0).

1.2 Migrating from Discoverer 3.1

To migrate from a release of Discoverer prior to 4.1 (e.g. 3.1), follow the steps below:

1. Migrate the 3.1 EUL to a 4.1 EUL using Oracle Discoverer Administration Edition 4.1.

2. Migrate the 4.1 EUL using Oracle9i Discoverer Administrator 9.0.2.

If you do not have Oracle Discoverer Administration Edition 4.1, you can obtain it from Oracle Support.

(Note: Oracle Discoverer Administrator was previously called Oracle Discoverer Administration Edition).

2 General Issues and Workarounds

At the time of writing, there were no known general issues or workarounds. Please see the Oracle9i Developer Suite Release Notes for any late breaking information.

3 Configuration Issues and Workarounds

At the time of writing, there were no known configuration issues or workarounds. Please see the Oracle9i Developer Suite Release Notes for any late breaking information.

4 Administration Issues and Workarounds

At the time of writing, there were no known administration issues or workarounds. Please see the Oracle9i Developer Suite Release Notes for any late breaking information.

5 Useful Information

5.1 Export to Oracle Reports templates

Note that the templates used by the export to Oracle Reports functionality can be found in the following directory:

<Oracle Home>\discoverer902\reports

5.2 Registry settings affecting fan trap functionality

Chapter 10 of the Oracle9i Discoverer Administrator Administration Guide contains a description and example of fan trap scenarios. Chapter 22 of the same document contains details of registry settings that affect the behavior of Discoverer. In addition to this information, please note the following registry keys and their impact on how Discoverer handles fan traps.

• DisableFanTrapResolution (0=disabled [default], 1=enabled)

  Enabling this registry key with a value of `1' causes Discoverer to generate SQL with a Cartesian product in it, under all fan trap scenarios. Only use this if you actually want the Cartesian product.

• DisableFanTrapDetection (0=disabled [default], 1=enabled)

  Note that the Discoverer user interface also allows modification of this registry setting. In Discoverer Plus, this is found under Tools | Options | Advanced | Disable fan trap detection. In Discoverer Viewer, this is found under Preferences | Fan Trap Detection.

  If it is disabled (which is the default), all the fan traps that are resolvable are resolved into correct result sets, and any irresolvable fan traps result in error messages and prevent you running the query.

  If it is enabled, Discoverer will still resolve fan traps correctly, but if you have an irresolvable combination, the query is not prevented from running and no warning is issued. The result is a Cartesian product.

The following table describes the behavior of Discoverer under the various combinations of these two registry settings.

Scenario 1: Fan trap that Discoverer can resolve

DisableFanTrapResolution	DisableFanTrapDetection	Result
0	0	Correct results
0	1	Correct results
1	0	Cartesian product
1	1	Cartesian product

Scenario 2: Fan trap that Discoverer cannot resolve

DisableFanTrapResolution	DisableFanTrapDetection	Result
0	0	Query not run and warning shown
0	1	Cartesian product
1	0	Cartesian product
1	1	Cartesian product

5.3 Characters that will be de-supported for use in identifiers

Identifiers are Discoverer's way to enable End User Layer (EUL) objects to be consistently referenced between different EULs. This is particularly useful if you wish to update a production EUL with changes made in a development EUL. The identifier property of an EUL object is accessed via the Properties dialog.

In a future release of Discoverer, there will be a change to the valid characters that can be used in identifiers. For this release, a warning will appear when attempting to create an identifier that contains a character that will be de-supported and a warning will appear in the import log when using Discoverer Administrator to import an .eex file that contains identifiers that contain de-supported characters. Please modify any identifiers that use these characters so that the identifiers can be used in future releases of Discoverer.

The following characters will be de-supported for use in identifiers in future releases of Discoverer:

! ~ * ( ) ` -

The characters that are supported for use in identifiers are as follows:

A..Z, a..z, 0..9, _

6 Documentation Errata

6.1 Installation Directory

Any occurrences of \discv902 in the Oracle9i Discoverer Desktop User's Guide should read \discoverer902.

6.2 Executable Name

Any occurrences of dis5usr.exe in the Oracle9i Discoverer Desktop User's Guide should read dis51usr.exe.

6.3 Registry Key Name

Any occurrences of the ...\Software\Oracle\Discoverer 5\... registry key in the Oracle9i Discoverer Desktop User's Guide should read ...\Software\Oracle\Discoverer 902\...

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Copyright © 2002 Oracle Corporation.

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