Search Hints

The Search Hints utility can provide end-users with hints about which columns are good or bad to use in the Search dialog. Good columns are columns that are part of an index and bad columns are those that are made of PL/SQL or SQL functions.

To make this feature available to end-users, an administrator/configuration consultant must enable this functionality.

Contents

Turn On Presentation of Search Hints

 This is done by generating Search Hints for all views and by setting the system parameter Query Dialog Hints to ON.

Overview Search Hints Window

It's no longer called overview

This form is used for generating Search Hints for IFS Applications views. The generation of Search Hints is needed because there is no connection between view, table and index columns in the database dictionary.

Fields for Overview Search Hints:

Column Description
View Name Name of the view parsed
LU Name Logical Unit the view belongs to
Successfully Parsed If selected  "checked"? or should I select it then the view can be successfully parsed by Oracle using Search Hints data. If not checked there is a problem with generating Search Hints from the view definition. Use Search Hints Configuration to correct Search Hints generated data.
Invalid If selected then the view has been created or replaced after last Search Hint generation and is a candidate to be regenerated. This column is based on date differences between Oracle dictionary and Search Hints generation data.
Timestamp When Search hints were last generated for this view.
Module Module the view is owned by.

Methods for Overview Search Hints:

Method Description
Generate ‘Search Hints’ for view(s) Generate Search Hints for marked views. One gives the choice to Rebuild all columns or all columns except those that have been manually edited.
Parse View(s) One can try to parse Search Hint information to see if it has any syntax errors.
Invalidate view(s) Changes timestamp so that the view is invalidated.
Generate ‘Search Hints’ for all views Starts a background job that generates Search Hints for all views owned by the Appowner. One has the choice to Rebuild all columns or all columns except those that have been manually edited. This method is typically used upon installation.
Generate ‘Search Hints’ for all invalid views Starts a background job that generates Search Hints for all invalidated views owned by the Appowner. One has the choice to Rebuild all columns or all columns except those that have been manually edited. This method is typically used after upgrades or minor changes.

Search Hints Configuration Window

This form is used for manipulating generated Search Hints data.

Which parts can I manipulate and to what end? Unclear.

Column Definitions holds the mapping between view and table columns.
Excluded Indexes holds information about indexes that should not be used when creating Search Hints.
Referenced tables hold information about tables referenced by the view.

Column Description
Column Name Name of the view column..
Source Code that implements the value used for view column..
Manually Edited If checked than this record has been manually changed..
Hint type Type of Search Hint:
- Normal, definition between view column name and table column name matches
- Mismatch, definition between view column name and table column name is mismatched
- IID, Instantiated identifier
- Function, SQL or PL/SQL function