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Overview

PV_MESSAGE is an Oracle E-Business Suite PL/SQL package owned by APPS that provides the message-handling layer for the ProcessView (PV) product family. Its central purpose is to decouple application code from message text stored in the Oracle EBS Message Dictionary, allowing tokens, translations, and message numbers to be resolved at runtime rather than hard-coded in forms or concurrent programs. The package serves two distinct roles: an in-memory message buffer (used when a message is built token by token and later retrieved or edited), and a stateless lookup interface for querying translated message text directly from the Message Dictionary database. Documentation classifies the API as OTHER, and it is referenced by one other package within the APPS schema. The header of the source file (pvxvmsgs.pls, version 115.6, dated December 2002) confirms the package is a long-standing component of the EBS code base carried forward unchanged into 12.1.1 and 12.2.2.

Key Procedures and Functions

The package exposes several procedures and functions, each with a specific role:

• SET_NAME — identifies the message name (and application) that subsequent operations act upon.
• SET_TOKEN — registers a named token and its substitution value within the current message buffer; the TRANSLATE flag controls whether the supplied value itself should be translated.
• RETRIEVE — returns the accumulated message with tokens substituted and clears the buffer, making it the terminating call in the build-then-read pattern.
• CLEAR — empties the message buffer without returning a value, useful when discarding a partially built message.
• GET_STRING — the direct lookup function highlighted by the search term; a one-call interface that returns a translated message from the Message Dictionary by application and message name. It performs no token substitution and returns NULL when the message cannot be located.
• GET_NUMBER — returns the numeric message identifier associated with an application and message name, or NULL if the message is not found.
• GET — returns the currently buffered message with translation and token substitution applied.
• GET_ENCODED — retrieves an encoded representation of a message from the message stack.
• PARSE_ENCODED — decodes an encoded message back into its component parts.
• SET_ENCODED — places an encoded message onto the stack.
• RAISE_ERROR — raises an application error using the buffered message data.

Tables Accessed

According to documented metadata, PV_MESSAGE references two tables through APPS synonyms. FND_APPLICATION is used to identify the owning application of a message, since messages are uniquely keyed by application and name. FND_NEW_MESSAGES is the Message Dictionary table storing the translated message text retrieved by GET_STRING and GET, and the source of the message number returned by GET_NUMBER. The package performs read-only access to these tables; message maintenance itself is handled through standard AD administration utilities.

Usage Notes

PV_MESSAGE is typically invoked from ProcessView forms and concurrent programs where translated messages must be displayed to end users, and from custom PL/SQL that needs consistent, translated error text. The most common simple usage is a direct call to GET_STRING, passing the application short name and message name; this is appropriate when no token substitution is required. When tokens must be substituted, developers use the SET_NAME / SET_TOKEN / RETRIEVE sequence or GET after populating the buffer. Because the functions are defined with WNDS (and, for GET_STRING, GET_NUMBER, and GET_ENCODED, additional purity restrictions), they can safely be called from SQL contexts and from within other PL/SQL units. The buffer-based procedures are not re-entrant, so concurrent use within a single session should be serialized. All functions return NULL, rather than raising an exception, when a message cannot be found, so calling code should validate results before use.