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Appendix C

System Variables

System variables are Oracle attributes that exist throughout a Form's runtime session. Variables contain important bits of information about various attributes that concern the Form. Some variables indicate current status and some have settings that tell the Form how to act. You can modify the behavior of your form by changing some of the variables.

A colon precedes the variables when it is used in an expression. The first part of the variable name, system, tells Oracle the variable is a system variable. The second part of the name following the dot notation is the variable name. Both the qualifier and the variable name must be used. The following is an example of a typical statement containing a system variable. The statement is assigning a value of 25 to the system variable :system.message_level.

:system.message_level = `25';

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Variable Name Description
system.block_status Contains the current status of the block. Three values can exist. The first is CHANGED, which indicates the block is holding at least one record that has been modified. The second is NEW, which indicates the block contains only unmodified records. The third value is QUERY, which indicates the block is in the Query mode.
system.coordination_operation Used during block synchronization procedures. It is used in conjunction with the system.master_block variable. During the clearing phase of a block synchronization, the system.master_block contains the name of the master block, and the system.coordination_operation contains the name of the event that occurred on the master block that caused the on-clear-details trigger to fire.
system.current_block Determines the position of the input focus. When it is in a block, record, or item, the value of this variable will be a block name. It will be Null when pre- and post-form triggers are firing.
system.current_datetime Contains a character value of the current operating system date and time. The default format is DD-MON-YYYY HH24:MI:SS.
system.current_form Contains the name of the current form.
system.current_item Contains the name of the current field. The value will be Null when the cursor is moving from one item to another.
system.current_value Contains the value of the item that is represented by the system.current_item variable.
system.cursor_block Contains the name of the block in which the cursor is currently located.
system.cursor_item Contains the name of the block and item in which the cursor is currently located.
system.cursor_record Contains the number of the record in which the cursor is currently located.
system.cursor_value Contains the value of the item in which the cursor is currently located.
system.custom_item_event Contains the name of an event that was caused by a VBX control.
system.custom_item_event _parameters Holds supplementary event arguments for a VBX control.

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Variable Name Description
system.date_threshold Holds the database date requery threshold. The variable works with the $$DBDATE$$, $$DBDATETIME$$, and $$DBTIMES$$ variables to control how often Forms synchronizes the database date with the RDBMS. The format of the value is mi:ss.
system.effective_date Sets the effective database date. The value has the following format: DD-MON-YYYY. HH24:MI:SS.
system.event_window Holds the name of the last window affected by an action that resulted from a window event trigger firing.
system.form_status Holds the status of the form that contains the cursor. The value can be one of the following: CHANGED, NEW, or QUERY.
system.last_query Contains the Select statement used to populate a form block during the current session.
system.last_record Contains a Boolean value indicating whether the current record is the last record in a block's set of records.
system.master_block Works in conjunction with the system.coordinations_operation variable to determine the type of operation fired by the on- clear-details trigger.
system.message_level Controls the display of error messages. Oracle error messages are assigned a value from 0 to 25, in increments of 5. Messages with a value less than this variable will not be displayed. The value should be enclosed by single quotes.
system.mode Determines whether the form is in the Normal, Enter-Query, or Query processing mode.
system.mouse_button_pressed Contains the number of the mouse button clicks. The far-left button has a value of one. The buttons increment by a value of one from left to right.
system.mouse_button_shift_state Indicates the key pressed during the click. Examples of the value are SHIFT, CONTROL, or ALT.
system.mouse_canvas Contains the name of the canvas in which the mouse input focus resides.
system.mouse_form Contains the name of the form in which the mouse input focus resides.
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Variable Name Description
system.mouse_item Contains the name of the item in which the mouse input focus resides.
system.mouse_record Contains the number of the record in which the mouse input focus resides.
system.mouse_record_offset Contains the number of the visible record in which the mouse input focus resides.
system.mouse_x_pos Contains the value of the mouse x-coordinate position.
system.mouse_y_pos Contains the value of the mouse y-coordinate position.
system.record_status Contains the status of the record in which the mouse is located. The values are CHANGED, INSERT, NEW, and QUERY.
system.suppress_working Contains a Boolean value that suppresses the working... message displayed by the form during runtime. True will prevent the display of the message. False will not prevent the message.
system.trigger_block Contains the name of the block where the cursor was located when the current trigger was fired.
system.trigger_item Contains the name of the block and item where the cursor was located when the current trigger was fired.
system.trigger_record Contains the number of the record that Forms is processing.

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