Forms 3.0 to 6i conversion - your advice & experience needed

[shellsray]

Hi, I'm a project manager who has been working on projects not involving Oracle for some time, so I'm a bit out of the loop on Oracle's latest versions (and so is our software!). I've been requested to convert a system that was written in Oracle Forms 3.0 to Oracle 6i. This is a small system, and I work for a non-profit so we have to keep the costs down.

I understand Oracle has an internal conversion tool. Is this sufficient? If not, why not and what tool did you use to convert? If it is, do you have to convert version-by-version to step up to 6i or can you do it all in one fell swoop? Any lessons learned during your conversion would be most appreciated. Thanks in advance.

 

[djmartin]

Read the white papers from oracle.com for converting 3 to 4.5 and for converting 4.5 to 6/6i. You will have to do both as 6/6i does not read 3 FMBs. You can use the 3rd party tools or pay big dollars for other people to convert everything for you but I have found the easiest way is to get a small team together then do the following. Convert the PLLs, then the MMBs, convert the 'flash' panel ie the first screen, then select each item on the menu and convert it in order. Convert any forms that are called by that form and then continue to the next.

At the end you will have a set of forms that are not used and you can decide whether to convert them or not.

Remember that any V2 triggers will compile in 6/6i but you will not be able to edit them so rewrite them when you go from 3 to 4.5.

Some of the trigger names have changed in 4.5 ... so you will have to change the names as you go. You should change the KEY-NEXT and KEY-PREV item triggers because they will be skipped when using the mouse for navigation.

Remember that object-groups, visual attrbiutes and property classes are available in 4.5 and 6 and that in 6 there are prompt properties on the items, so remember to go to the canvas and associate the fields with their labels.

Hope this starts you on your way.

David