Oracle ADF Quintessentials

JDev: 12.1.3.0.0 Source:  GitHub This article talks about the source order of ADF View Object's attributes and how it affects findByKey operation. As a handy list, we need to remember that there are 3 items which need to be in sync in order for findByKey to work (or for that matter anything to work): 1. Sequence of columns in the ViewObject's  SQL . 2. Sequence of attributes in the ViewObject's Attributes tab. 3. Sequence of attributes in ViewRowImpl's AttributesEnum . Let's see how we can manipulate these orders and destroy our code! In order to demonstrate our use cases, I have a table VIEW_OBJECT_SOURCE_DEMO, which has 2 columns - KEY_ATTR1 and KEY_ATTR2 - which are marked as key attributes. In my AppModuleImpl class, I have a findByKey operation which takes in these 2 string values and returns a single row. Let's go through the above 3 point list and see where we stand. My AppModule's method is as follows: Now if I run this met...

JDev: 12.2.1.3.0 Source:  GitHub This is a quick blog post which showcases the power of ADF UI components' attribute. Alternatively, this blog post could also have had a heading of "Getting current row when af-table's row selection is disabled", but I randomly chose the former. A typical use-case for such a requirement could be that the customer does not want any row selection, in order to improve the page performance, as every row selection change calls for a server trip wherein lot of information gets stored on the ADF framework. But we also need a mechanism where, if an editable attribute of the ADF table is modified, we should be able to extract the row on which the operation was performed . Since row selection is disabled, the framework has no information of current row. Here is where we can make use of <f:attribute> . We create a new attribute on the editable column, which holds "#{row}"  value. This row  expression comes from var  attr...

JDev: 12.2.1.3.0 This article talks about a powerful, yet under-utilized, feature of ADF BC - the data type mapping. Oracle ADF provides this feature to generate a runtime mapping between a View Object's String attribute and a Web Service's (both SOAP and REST) Boolean attribute. The most popular use-case for this feature is to map a Boolean Active/Inactive flag from the service to a Yes/No value on the View Object. By default, ADF provides 3 mappings, which cover the following scenarios: 1. oracle.jbo.valuemaps. BooleanYNPropertySet - maps Y/N to true/false. 2. oracle.jbo.valuemaps. BooleanTFPropertySet - maps T/F to true/false. 3. oracle.jbo.valuemaps. Boolean10PropertySet - maps 1/0 to true/false. These property sets are in adfm.jar, which is part of the ADF Model Runtime library. The advantage of using a type mapping is a two-way binding - you may pass the String as well as the Boolean value in the payload, and the type ...

JDev: 12.2.1.3.0 Source: 1) ADF BC REST , 2)  Oracle JET application Continuting on the previous discussion on ADF BC REST -  Type Mapping - the framework can be stretched further to work with uploading files and images. Working with attachments is an important aspect in any commercial application; and ADF BC REST service provides us with a robust mechanism to store and display files and images through BLOB columns. The following article discusses both about developing the REST service for storing documents in an Oracle database, as well as configuring an Oracle JET application which uploads and displays an image on the GUI. The REST API I have added a PROFILE_IMAGE column of BLOB type to the employees table in the HR schema, and I will use this column for storing my attachments. BLOB columns are handled in a slightly different way by the REST API. The BLOB column is not included in the actual payload, but it comes as part of the links section, as an enclosure ...

JDev: 12.2.1.3.0 This is more like an update on my previous article -  ADF BC REST - NULL and DEFAULT , where I spoke about the various ways null data can be defaulted via a REST API. However, there was one use case which I had missed - the CREATE method of EntityImpl. There is an interesting behaviour which may be observed when, instead of  setting a default value declaratively on the entity attribute, we override the CREATE  method of the EntityImpl subclass. When a value is set in the create method, this value takes precedence, irrespective of whether we pass null, some value or don't pass the attribute in the payload at all. To demonstrate this, I will set a value of 25000 for Salary attribute in the create method. Developer Tip: Instances of subclasses should call super.create() before performing any operation. And I will pass the below payloads: For all the three payloads, the data gets saved with salary 25000, the value with which it was i...

JDev: 12.2.1.3.0 Source:  GitHub This article talks about an interesting difference between passing null and no value  for a column in the payload of an ADF BC REST end-point. Now this might seem a bit obvious in the end, but nonetheless, it can be confusing at times. To demonstrate this problem, I have the following use-case: Set a default value for employee "Salary" during insert or update ! Now your GUI might have some required validation set on this field, and it does not allow the end-user to save the form without a non-zero salary. That is all good. But your QA might have an automation running to check the REST APIs with their own payload. And this is something which needs to be in sync with the UI logic. To get started, I have my Employee entity object with a default value of 5500 for Salary field. Case # 1: Payload does not contain Salary attribute When I submit this payload, I get back an Employee object with the default Salary o...

JDev: 12.2.1.3.0 Source:  GitHub This article talks about querying ADF BC REST services using a RowFinder , and displaying different data sets based on our needs, using REST Shaping . REST Shaping This is a powerful tool provided by ADF BC to determine the kind of data you can expose to the end user. Imagine this use-case where we need to display certain attributes of an employee on the front-end application depending on whether we have an anonymous or an authenticated user, while we retain all the features of the view object (View criteria, custom SQL etc). Creating multiple copies of the same VO is certainly not an option. REST shaping allows you to create metadata on the view object, identified by a unique name, where you can specify which columns may displayed and which all may be hidden. See examples below, which show two shapes created - AuthView and NoAuthView, each showing different data sets. Important Note : Each REST instance suppo...

JDev: 12.2.1.3.0 Source:  GitHub XML generation is something we use quite extensively in ADF products - be it for PDF generation, or for printing labels on a Zebra printer or for sending data to an external system. And ADF BC does have an out-of-the-box support for generating XML documents straight out of its view objects, via its writeXML API. However, there are times when we need to stretch the XML documents - maybe create a custom XML, or import a custom node inside a ADF BC generated XML. This article intends to provide a working solution for these extra bits, along with a few tweaks for the standard process. This article will cover 3 use-cases: 1. Generate a standard XML from ADF BC, with node names of our choice. 2. Generate a custom XML from an XSD schema. 3. Combine the above two XMLs into a composite XML document. The sample application uses Departments and Employees tables from HR schema. To keep the size of the XMLs small, the VOs have been tuned t...