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Overview

QLTDATE is a utility package owned by the APPS schema in Oracle E-Business Suite 12.1.1 and 12.2.2. Its business function is to centralize the conversion of date values between the three representations used throughout EBS: canonical form, user (display) form, and any (flexible input) form. Canonical form is the internal, invariant representation used for storage and comparison; user form is the value as presented to an end user, typically formatted according to a mask; and any form is a value supplied in an arbitrary, caller-dependent representation that must be normalized before use. By exposing a consistent conversion API, QLTDATE allows calling modules to exchange date values without embedding formatting or parsing logic in each caller. The package header carries the RCS header $Header: qltdateb.pls 120.0.12000000.1 2007/01/19 07:15:29 appldev ship $, indicating a long-lived, shipped object that has been stable across releases. Within the ETRM classification it is recorded as an OTHER API rather than a standard business-object API, and it is referenced by 15 other packages, confirming its role as shared infrastructure rather than application logic.

Key Procedures and Functions

The documented interface comprises 29 procedures and functions. The mask-related functions — USER_MASK, OUTPUT_MASK, and OUTPUT_DT_MASK — return the format masks applied when a date is rendered for display. The canonical conversion family includes CANON_TO_DATE, CANON_TO_USER, and CANON_TO_NUMBER, which translate values out of canonical form, and CANON_TO_USER is overloaded to accept either a character or a date argument. The flexible-input family includes ANY_TO_DATE, ANY_TO_CANON, ANY_TO_USER, and ANY_TO_NUMBER. Several of these are overloaded: ANY_TO_DATE accepts either a Varchar2 or a Date, and the source comments record that the overload was introduced to treat hard-coded and soft-coded collection elements differently, since hard-coded elements do not require to_date() conversion (bug #2503882). The reverse-direction functions include DATE_TO_USER, DATE_TO_CANON, DATE_TO_CANON_DT, NUMBER_TO_CANON, NUMBER_CANON_TO_USER, and NUMBER_USER_TO_CANON. Additional members are ANY_TO_DATETIME, DATE_TO_USER_DT, GET_SYSDATE, and UPGRADE_TO_CANON. Every function carries the PRAGMA restrict_references(..., WNDS, WNPS) directive, asserting no writes to database state and no writes to package state, which permits the functions to be called from SQL and from read-consistent contexts. The source comment on both CANON_TO_DATE and CANON_TO_USER notes that overloading is "extremely useful to hide the details of implementation from caller."

Tables Accessed

No tables are documented as referenced by QLTDATE through APPS synonyms in the ETRM metadata. This is consistent with the package's design as a pure conversion utility: because every function is declared with WNDS and WNPS purity, the functions cannot read or modify database tables. Conversion depends only on mask values supplied by the mask functions and on the arguments passed by callers.

Usage Notes

QLTDATE is intended to be invoked from Forms, concurrent programs, and custom PL/SQL that must normalize or display date values. The typical pattern is to call an ANY_TO_* function to bring external input into canonical form, manipulate or store the canonical value, then call a CANON_TO_USER or DATE_TO_USER function to render it. Because the functions satisfy the WNDS/WNPS purity levels, they may be referenced directly in SQL statements and in contexts where a read-only guarantee is required. The presence of 15 referencing packages indicates that callers should treat the package signature as a stable contract; the overloads on CANON_TO_DATE, CANON_TO_USER, and ANY_TO_USER mean that a call resolving to the character or date variant is determined by the argument type supplied. The restrict_references pragma corresponds to the guidance in the Oracle server application developer's documentation referenced in the package source, and the UPGRADE_TO_CANON and GET_SYSDATE members support migration of legacy values and retrieval of the current system date within the canonical framework.