What are key items?

In repeating forms and repeating sections, you can identify certain items as key items. In Oracle InForm, key items are used to:

• Simplify navigation to a specific instance of a repeating form. The values of key items appear in a drop-down list in the summary view of the repeating form, and users can navigate to a specific instance of the form by clicking the key item values for that instance.
• Verify that the values of certain items are unique among instances of a repeating form or an itemset.

Key items can have individual or group uniqueness.

• Key items in a repeating section must always be defined as having individual or group uniqueness and are not used as navigation tools for instances of itemsets in Oracle InForm.
• If key items are defined with individual uniqueness, an Oracle InForm user cannot add an instance of a repeating form or itemset in which the value of any key item is identical to the value of that item in another instance.

  A set of key items for a repeating form can include both items that are individually unique and items that appear in the drop-down list for navigation but are not used to enforce uniqueness. The key items can come from the repeating form or from a non-repeating section in the form.

• If key items are defined with group uniqueness, they make up a composite key. An Oracle InForm user cannot add an instance of a repeating form or itemset in which the values of all of the items in the composite key are the same as the values of all of the composite key items in another instance.

  If a group of key items is defined with group uniqueness, no other items in the repeating form or section can be defined as non-unique key items. Only the items that are defined with group uniqueness appear in the drop-down list of a repeating form.