Tip for Oracle Designer API programming

Today I was at a customer site where we discussed programming using the API for Oracle Designer and Oracle SCM. I demonstrated the F5 function key in both the RON (Repository Object Navigator) and the Design Editor. When you select an object, click on one of its properties and press the F5 button, the property details popup-window appears. It presents information from the meta-model regarding the currently selected object and property. It indicates the internal identifiers, both ivid and irid, for the object, the name of the internal table (and indirectly view) holding the element, the name of the view-column to be used to access the property in the CI-view as well as the underlying table column. It also shows the actual internal value of the property – that may deviate from the value displayed in the property editor. I made a small contribution by solliciting the following features with the developer of the RON (Sue Pratt in particular): allow us to select and copy the (impossibly long) irid and ivid values to the clipboard so they can be used in SQL queries. (try typing: select * from ci_table_definitions where irid= 1788113495922626651612901832990322102)

I sort of assumed that everyone interested in Designer API stuff knows about this window and feature so I never thought about writing it up. Apparently this is not the case. Hence this post.
Tip for Oracle Designer API programming designer f5 property details

3 Comments

  1. Didier November 19, 2004
  2. Lucas November 19, 2004
  3. Didier November 19, 2004