Posted on August 22nd, 2007 by Sanjit Anand ||
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As we have seen DFF provide customizable expansion space in the form to capture additional information, which are not provided at present. A DFF describes an application entity, providing form and database expansion space that can be customized.
Why Descriptive Flex fields
- Customers require more data to be stored than what Oracle provides
- Oracle gave us additional “space†in most tables to store this data
- Descriptive Flexfields will survive an upgrade
Global vs Context Sensitive
- Global Data Elements mean the question will be asked for every occurrence of the Descriptive Flexfield.
- Context Sensitive Elements are questions asked “depending†on the answer to some other question. This “other†question can use a Reference field from above for its answer.
How Segments Use Underlying Columns
- A DFF uses columns that are added onto a database table. The table contains any columns that its entity requires.
The DFF columns provide ‘blank’ columns that you can use to store information which is not already stored in another column of that table. - A DFF requires one column for each possible segment and one additional column in which to store structure information(i.e. The context value).
- You can define as many segments in a single structures as you have DFF columns in your table.
The DFF columns are usually named as ATTRIBUTEn, where n is a number.
Implementing Descriptive Flexfileds
For implementing DFF it requires five steps:
- Define DFF columns in your Database table
- Register your table with AOL/ Pl/SQL scripts
- Register Your DFF with Oracle AOL
- Create Your DFF in Your Form
- Add DFF routines to Your Form
Drawbacks of DFF
- Disk space is wasted.
- DFF has limited segment for global as well as context-sensitive attribute.
- No query possible on DFF segment values.