Search Results inv_mobile_helper_functions




Overview
Explore in AI Chat

Overview

INV_MOBILE_HELPER_FUNCTIONS is a helper PL/SQL package owned by the APPS schema in Oracle E-Business Suite, present in both the 12.1.1 and 12.2.2 application releases. It exists to support the Oracle Inventory mobile User Interface — commonly referred to as Mobile Supply Chain Applications (MSCA) — by supplying low-level utility routines for error handling, diagnostics, and message retrieval. Instead of embedding repetitive logging and error-capture logic in each mobile transaction screen, the MSCA code base centralizes these concerns in a single shared package.

The package was declared with AUTHID CURRENT_USER, meaning its SQL statements execute with the privileges of the invoking session rather than the package owner. This design is deliberate for a package that performs broad, cross-module diagnostic work on behalf of mobile sessions, since it avoids hard-coding invoker rights into the package owner. The header comment ($Header: INVMTXHS.pls 120.1 2005/06/17 09:55:45 appldev $) confirms the file has remained stable since a 2005 revision, which is consistent with a small, mature utility package. Its API classification in the ETRM repository is OTHER, and it is referenced by 85 other packages, indicating a widely reused utility role across the Inventory mobile stack.

Key Procedures and Functions

The package exposes three documented procedures:

  • TRACELOG — Writes a diagnostic entry comprising an error message, the originating module, and a severity level, with the level defaulting to 9 when the caller does not supply one. It is used as a debug and support-aid facility to record the flow of mobile transactions and capture unexpected conditions without aborting execution.
  • SQL_ERROR — Captures a database error context by accepting the routine name, the location within that routine, and the Oracle error code. It is invoked from exception handlers to normalize how SQL failures are reported by mobile programs.
  • GET_STACKED_MESSAGES — Retrieves the accumulated Oracle message stack, concatenates the individual messages into a single output string, and then clears the stack so the messages are not returned a second time. The single OUT parameter carries the consolidated text back to the caller.

The procedure name directly addresses the user's search term, "get_stacked_messages," and reflects a common MSCA pattern in which several warnings and errors are gathered during a mobile page transaction and then presented to the device user as one combined message.

Tables Accessed

The documented metadata records only UTL_FILE as a referenced dependency, accessed through an APPS synonym. UTL_FILE is the Oracle-supplied PL/SQL file I/O package, not an application table; the helper package uses it to persist trace and error output to a server-side log file. No Inventory transactional tables (such as MTL_SYSTEM_ITEMS_B, MTL_ONHAND_QUANTITIES, or MTL_TRANSACTIONS_INTERFACE) are recorded as directly referenced by this package, which is consistent with its role as a diagnostic utility rather than a business-data manipulator. Any error text it surfaces through GET_STACKED_MESSAGES originates from the calling program's message stack, not from direct table reads performed here.

Usage Notes

The package is typically invoked by other PL/SQL packages rather than directly by end users. Mobile Supply Chain Applications packages call TRACELOG and SQL_ERROR inside their exception sections, and call GET_STACKED_MESSAGES to obtain a consolidated error string for display on the mobile client. The high inbound reference count of 85 packages confirms this pattern of use.

Customizations and extensions built on the MSCA framework should follow the same conventions: route unexpected exceptions through SQL_ERROR with a meaningful routine name and location, use TRACELOG for verbose troubleshooting during implementation and support, and use GET_STACKED_MESSAGES when a combined message must be returned to the user. Because the package runs under invoker rights and depends on UTL_FILE, the invoking session must have the appropriate directory object privileges and file system access configured for trace logging to succeed in a 12.1.1 or 12.2.2 environment.