Oracle Forms Developer and OracleAS Forms Services Migrating Forms Applications from Forms 6 10g (9.0.4) Part Number B10469-01 |
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Oracle Graphics6i is no longer shipped with Oracle Forms. In addition, the Charting wizard has been removed from Forms. This chapter describes how you can call existing Graphics6i and Reports applications from a form.
You cannot create new charts because Oracle Graphics6i is no longer shipped with Oracle Forms. However, you can display existing charts in Forms and Reports applications that have been migrated.
The following whitepapers at http://otn.oracle.com/products/forms provide additional information:
If your form contains embedded Oracle Graphics6i displays, you can still display them in Oracle Forms by doing the following:
Note: You must also add the PATH and GRAPHICS60_PATH variables to the default.env file in Oracle Forms. You add these variables with Enterprise Mangager Application Server Control. For information on how to do this, see Chapter 4 of the Oracle Application Server Forms Services Deployment Guide part number B10470-01.
Note: The following registry entries are read directly from the Graphics 6i ORACLE_HOME registry:
You can edit the properties of existing Oracle Forms chart items, create new Oracle Forms chart items in Forms Developer, and populate an Oracle Forms chart item with an OGD file that was created in Oracle Graphics6i Developer. However, future releases of Forms may further restrict Graphics6i functionality.
Since Oracle Graphics was not originally conceived for Web deployment, issues may arise when forms with embedded charts are re-deployed from a client-server environment to the Web, particularly more complex charts with more complex character sets. In some cases, text dimensions may alter, causing text items to overlap or to extend over the edge of a display. These issues, particularly concerning scaling, are akin to the side effects that can occur when porting applications from one platform to another. Recommendations on how to deal with these issues can be found in Deploying Oracle Graphics in Oracle9iAS V2 Forms Services at http://otn.oracle.com/.
Migration to the Web of forms with embedded Oracle Graphics displays may well entail modifications to modules. Allow time to check the behavior of each embedded chart on the Web, and decide if any of the suggestions in the white paper need to be implemented. See how the chart looks with the largest set of data it is likely to be passed, not just a small set of test data (good practice whether running in a client-server environment or on the Web). Consider whether reports deployment may be preferable in some cases. Review the charts to see if there are any items that can be removed, particularly redundant axes labels or legends. If you are migrating forms with embedded OGDs from client-server deployment to Oracle9iAS on the Web, it would be best to break this down into two stages. First migrate to Forms Services 6i Web deployment and then upgrade to Oracle9iAS. In this way, you can deal with any Oracle Graphics Web-migration issues in the 6i environment in which you still have Graphics Builder and the Chart Wizard. Nevertheless, in the second stage, the upgrade to Oracle9iAS, check out the appearance of your charts once again.
You can embed new and existing Reports applications in forms that have been migrated to Oracle Forms.
You can no longer use the Reports client runtime engine to output Reports in the Web. From Forms50 forward, the RUN_REPORT_OBJECT Built-in is available in Forms Developer to run integrated reporting in Forms. The RUN_PRODUCT Built-in is obsolete in Oracle Forms for running Oracle Reports applications from Oracle Forms.
Oracle9i Forms and Oracle Reports are now Web-based only, and do not have client/server runtime engines. Therefore, integrated reports in Oracle Forms applications must be recoded to use the RUN_REPORT_OBJECT Built-in and Oracle Application Server Reports Services.
For additional information about integrating Oracle Forms with Reports, see Integrating Oracle9iAS Reports in Oracle9iAS Forms at the Oracle Technology Network at http://otn.oracle.com.
If your form contains embedded Oracle Reports applications, you can migrate the form to Oracle Forms by changing the integrated call to Oracle Reports to use:
Using RUN_PRODUCT in Oracle9i Forms to run integrated Oracle Reports is no longer supported in Oracle9i Forms. The Oracle9i Forms Migration Assistant is provided to help you migrate your applications to use Run_Report_Object. See Chapter 2, "Using the Oracle Forms Migration Assistant" for more information.
The following example runs a report using the RUN_REPORT_OBJECT Built-in. The report_object node defined in Forms Developer is assumed to be "report_node1". A user-defined Reports parameter "p_deptno" is passed by Forms using the value in the "dept.deptno" field. The Reports parameter form is suppressed. For additional details about the logic used in this example, see Notes About the Example.
/* The following example runs a report using the RUN_REPORT_OBJECT Built-in. The report_object node defined in Forms Developer is assumed to be "report_node1". A user-defined Reports parameter "p_deptno" is passed by Forms using the value in the "dept.deptno" field. The Reports parameter form is suppressed */ DECLARE v_report_id Report_Object; vc_report_job_id VARCHAR2(100); /* unique id for each Report request */ vc_rep_status VARCHAR2(100); /* status of the Report job */ BEGIN /* Get a handle to the Report Object itself. */ v_report_id:= FIND_REPORT_OBJECT('report_node1'); SET_REPORT_OBJECT_PROPERTY(v_report_id,REPORT_COMM_MODE, SYNCHRONOUS); SET_REPORT_OBJECT_PROPERTY(v_report_id,REPORT_DESTYPE,CACHE); /* Define the Report output format and the name of the Reports Server as well as a user-defined parameter, passing the department number from Forms to the Report. The Reports parameter form is suppressed by setting paramform to "no". */ SET_REPORT_OBJECT_PROPERTY(v_report_id,REPORT_DESFORMAT, '<HTML|HTMLCSS|PDF|RTF|XML|DELIMITED>'); /* replace <ReportServerTnsName> with the name of the Reports9i Services as defined in your tnsnames.ora file */ SET_REPORT_OBJECT_PROPERTY(v_report_id,REPORT_SERVER, '<ReportServerTnsName>'); SET_REPORT_OBJECT_PROPERTY(v_report_id,REPORT_OTHER, 'p_ deptno='||:dept.deptno||'paramform=no'); /* finally, run the report and retrieve the Reports job_id as a handle to the Reports process */ vc_report_job_id:=RUN_REPORT_OBJECT(report_id); /*The report output is not delivered automatically to the client, which is okay because the Web is a request model. Thus the next step is to check if the report finished. */ vc_rep_status := REPORT_OBJECT_STATUS(vc_report_job_id); IF vc_rep_status='FINISHED' THEN /* Call the Report output to be displayed in a separate browser window. The URL for relative addressing is only valid when the Reports Server is on the same host as the Forms Server. For accessing a Remote Reports Server on a different machine, you must use the prefix http://hostname:port/ */ web.show_document ('/<virtual path>/<reports cgi or servlet name>/getjobid='|| vc_report_job_id ||'?server='|| '<ReportServerTnsName>','_blank'); ELSE message ('Report failed with error message '||rep_status); END IF; END;
SET_REPORT_OBJECT_PROPERTY(report_id,REPORT_EXECUTION_MODE,BATCH); SET_REPORT_OBJECT_PROPERTY(report_id,REPORT_COMM_MODE,ASYNCHRONOUS);
The following example shows the When-Timer-Expired trigger that checks for the Report_Object_Status.
(...) /* :global.vc_report_job_id needs to be global because the information about the Report job_id is shared between the trigger code that starts the Report and the When-Trigger-Expired trigger that checks the current Report status. */ vc_rep_status:= REPORT_OBJECT_STATUS(:global.vc_report_job_id); IF vc_rep_status='FINISHED' THEN web.show_document ('/<virtual path>/<reports cgi or servlet name>/getjobid='|| vc_report_job_id ||'?server='|| '<ReportServerTnsName>','_blank'); ELSIF vc_rep_status not in ('RUNNING','OPENING_REPORT','ENQUEUED') THEN message (vc_rep_status||' Report output aborted'); END IF; (...)
Parameter lists that were used with RUN_PRODUCT in client-server mode can also be used with RUN_REPORT_OBJECT calling Oracle Application Server Reports Services. System parameters must be set by the Set_Report_Object_Property. The syntax for using parameter lists in RUN_REPORT_OBJECT is as follows:
report_job_id:=run_report_object(report_id,paramlist_id);
where paramlist_id is the same id used with RUN_PRODUCT.
Parameter settings can be any of the following:
Other settings are as follows:
You can use the Oracle9i Forms Migration Assistant described in Chapter 2, "Using the Oracle Forms Migration Assistant" to change integrated Reports calls in your Oracle Forms modules. The Oracle9i Forms Migration Assistant adds code to your application modules that redirects Run_Product calls to Reports and uses the Run_Report_Object Built-in and Reports Services. The resulting conversion is of the same quality as using Run_Product and the runtime engine in Forms 6i.
To manually migrate Reports in Oracle Forms, do the following:
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