Mixing Java with Oracle Forms 11g

[Jo Young]

I have already tried asking about this on the Oracle forum but it has so far left me more confused and having no idea what to do. What's going on is I wrote a program for work that allows the user to upload a document from their computer onto the database and then download it back later. Now I have to take that and integrate it into a button in Oracle Forms because our actual program runs from Forms. I know Forms uses a different language (PL/SQL) but i was hoping that someone would be able to help still. I imported the jar into the form and wrote a button with code I found online (modified slightly for my own use of course):

DECLARE jo ora_java.jobject; rv varchar(100); ex ora_java.jobject; BEGIN JO := Upload.new; RV := Upload.startUploadPage(JO); EXCEPTION WHEN ORA_JAVA.JAVA_ERROR then message('Unable to load Upload page, ' || ORA_JAVA.LAST_ERROR); WHEN ORA_JAVA.EXCEPTION_THROWN then ex := ORA_JAVA.LAST_EXCEPTION; message('Java Error'); END;

but when I tried to compile it I got:

Error 306 at line 8, column 8
wrong number or types of arguments in call to 'STARTUPLOADPAGE'

I did get out of someone on the Oracle forum that apparently as written my code wont work anyway because apparently the jar importer in Forms doesnt transfer UI (ie Java Swing) and that in order to get the UI to transfer I would have to write a JavaBean on top of my code... but 1 I have no clue what a JavaBean is and the research I have done so far about it has just confused me more... and 2 I'm not sure what that has to do with the error considering that the method that is supposed to be being called by the line that threw the error doesnt have any JFrames or Java Swing of any kind connected to it... there is a tiny bit of Swing in the class to open up the first form that has the buttons for upload and download in it but that is all. I have 4 classes in that jar... 3 are the various Java Swing pages and have the absolute minimum logic in them possible... and the 4th one is the one that starts everything going, has the main class, and any serious logic that needs to be done the needed values are passed to that class and that class does all the work... that 4th class is the one that is being called in the PL/SQL. If it isnt any trouble could I maybe get a little help from someone on:

1. How to write a JavaBean to allow my program to work the way it is supposed to in Forms and

2. Why I am getting this error and how to make it go away

[Rob Brownsell]

Hi there, when calling Java from Oracle forms or adding swing components, I've always used PJCs (pluggable Java components). This has the benefit of using the JVM being used by the client instead of having to use the one that comes with forms. This means you're not tied to the particular version of forms you are running. You have to update your formsweb.cfg to register your jar and put it in the java directory below forms. I know this is a bit different to what you were describing in your post but generally I've found this to be a reliable way to integrate Java into Oracle forms. There's quite a good resource on doing this sort of thing here:

http://forms.pjc.bean.over-blog.com/

One gotcha is if your implementation still uses JInitiator. If this is the case then all your PJCs must use Java 1.3. That's still the case where I work but we should be moving away from it soon (hopefully).

[Jo Young]

Rob Brownsell wrote:Hi there, when calling Java from Oracle forms or adding swing components, I've always used PJCs (pluggable Java components). This has the benefit of using the JVM being used by the client instead of having to use the one that comes with forms. This means you're not tied to the particular version of forms you are running. You have to update your formsweb.cfg to register your jar and put it in the java directory below forms. I know this is a bit different to what you were describing in your post but generally I've found this to be a reliable way to integrate Java into Oracle forms. There's quite a good resource on doing this sort of thing here:

http://forms.pjc.bean.over-blog.com/

One gotcha is if your implementation still uses JInitiator. If this is the case then all your PJCs must use Java 1.3. That's still the case where I work but we should be moving away from it soon (hopefully).

oh ok cool thank you.. unfortunately (stupid internet security makes my job impossible sometimes) I can't get to the link you gave me... thankfully forums are not blocked... however blogs are

I am using JDeveloper 11g Forms 11g and Java 6 (not sure why but for some reason between 1.4 and 5 then decided to drop the "1.")

[Jo Young]

Rob Brownsell wrote:Hi there, when calling Java from Oracle forms or adding swing components, I've always used PJCs (pluggable Java components). This has the benefit of using the JVM being used by the client instead of having to use the one that comes with forms. This means you're not tied to the particular version of forms you are running. You have to update your formsweb.cfg to register your jar and put it in the java directory below forms. I know this is a bit different to what you were describing in your post but generally I've found this to be a reliable way to integrate Java into Oracle forms. There's quite a good resource on doing this sort of thing here:

http://forms.pjc.bean.over-blog.com/

One gotcha is if your implementation still uses JInitiator. If this is the case then all your PJCs must use Java 1.3. That's still the case where I work but we should be moving away from it soon (hopefully).

oh ok cool thank you.. unfortunately (stupid internet security makes my job impossible sometimes) I can't get to the link you gave me... thankfully forums are not blocked... however blogs are

I am using JDeveloper 11g Forms 11g and Java 6 (not sure why but for some reason between 1.4 and 5 then decided to drop the "1.")

[Jo Young]

oops sorry for the double post...

[Rob Brownsell]

I'll try to explain as much as I can in this post but I believe the Oracle website has some information on this. Surely they haven't blocked that site! You need to add frmall.jar to your project, this will give you the forms classes you need (you should find it in your forms installation). You then need to create a class that extends VBean. Here is a simple class that displays a swing button.

import java.awt.FlowLayout;
import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.awt.event.ActionListener;
import java.awt.event.FocusEvent;
import java.awt.Color;
import java.awt.event.FocusListener;

import javax.swing.JButton;

import javax.swing.JLabel;

import oracle.forms.handler.IHandler;
import oracle.forms.properties.ID;
import oracle.forms.ui.CustomEvent;
import oracle.forms.ui.VBean;

public class Template extends VBean implements ActionListener {

    protected static final ID pSetText = ID.registerProperty("SET_TEXT");
    protected static final ID pGetText = ID.registerProperty("GET_TEXT");
    protected static final ID pLostFocus = ID.registerProperty("BEAN_QUITTED");
    private JLabel display = new JLabel("Press a button");
    private IHandler m_handler;
    private JButton button1;


    public Template() {
        super();
        addComponents();
        this.setLayout(new FlowLayout());

    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        new Template();
    }

    /**
     * 
     * @param handler
     */
    public void init(IHandler handler) {
        super.init(handler);
        m_handler = handler;
    }

    /**
     * 
     * @param contentPane
     */
    protected void addComponents() {
        button1 = new JButton("Button1");
        button1.setActionCommand("fireButton1");
        button1.addActionListener(this);
        this.add(display);
        this.add(button1);
    }


    public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
        if ("fireButton1".equals(e.getActionCommand())) {
            if (display.getText().equals("off")) {
                display.setText("on");
            } else {
                display.setText("off");
            }
        }
    }


    /**
     * Get the text content to return to Forms
     * @param pId
     * @return
     */
    public Object getProperty(ID pId) {
        return super.getProperty(pId);
    }

    /**
     * Set the text content from Forms
     * @param pId
     * @param pValue
     * @return
     */
    public boolean setProperty(ID pId, Object pValue) {
        return super.setProperty(pId, pValue);
    }

    /**
     * 
     * @param e
     */
    public void focusGained(FocusEvent e) {

        try {
            m_handler.setProperty(FOCUS_EVENT, e);
        } catch (Exception ex) {
            ex.printStackTrace();
        }
    }

    public void focusLost(FocusEvent e) {
        CustomEvent ce = new CustomEvent(m_handler, pLostFocus);
        dispatchCustomEvent(ce);
    }

}

You need to create a bean area in your form and specify the implementation class as the name in your jar (fully qualified with the package name). The methods setProperty and getProperty can be used to send and receive parameters to and from the class. To call these methods from your form you have to call set_custom_property and get_custom_property. You should see examples of these functions in the forms help.

[Jo Young]

Rob Brownsell wrote:I'll try to explain as much as I can in this post but I believe the Oracle website has some information on this. Surely they haven't blocked that site! You need to add frmall.jar to your project, this will give you the forms classes you need (you should find it in your forms installation).

you would think the Oracle website would have stuff on it but I havent been able to find anything as of yet and I have been looking for over a month... there was a few tutorials but they were all program specific and mostly all using netbean and none of them were for JDev 11g and most of it was walking through how that program makes it so you dont have to do much of any coding because the program does your coding for you and almost no actual coding being done which made following it with JDev 11g very difficult if not impossible.

thank you very much I will look through what you gave me and see how I do.

[Rob Brownsell]

Jo Young wrote:

Rob Brownsell wrote:I'll try to explain as much as I can in this post but I believe the Oracle website has some information on this. Surely they haven't blocked that site! You need to add frmall.jar to your project, this will give you the forms classes you need (you should find it in your forms installation).

you would think the Oracle website would have stuff on it but I havent been able to find anything as of yet and I have been looking for over a month... there was a few tutorials but they were all program specific and mostly all using netbean and none of them were for JDev 11g and most of it was walking through how that program makes it so you dont have to do much of any coding because the program does your coding for you and almost no actual coding being done which made following it with JDev 11g very difficult if not impossible.

thank you very much I will look through what you gave me and see how I do.

This is document was written back in 2000 (when it comes to Oracle forms, I don't think much has really moved on since then!) but I think the principals are the same

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/developer-tools/forms/documentation/269054-130573.pdf

[Jo Young]

Rob Brownsell wrote:
This is document was written back in 2000 (when it comes to Oracle forms, I don't think much has really moved on since then!) but I think the principals are the same

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/developer-tools/forms/documentation/269054-130573.pdf

Yea from what I've heard Forms hasn't really changed any since like 6i or something like that