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Overview

FND_CONST is an internal server-side PL/SQL package shipped in the APPS schema that defines the application-wide constant and data-type layer used throughout Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.1.1 and 12.2.2. Its header comment designates it as providing "Application data types," and its repository metadata classifies it with a display name of "Application Constants," a scope of internal, an active lifecycle, and a compatibility flag of S (supported). The package header is identified by the source control signature AFSCCONS.pls 120.4, dated 23 May 2008.

Rather than performing business transactions, FND_CONST establishes the shared vocabulary that other FND and application packages depend upon: literal constants for undefined values, PL/SQL parameter modes, logging configuration keys, and application name attributes. It also declares a general-purpose associative array type, t_hashtable, defined as a table of VARCHAR2(2000) indexed by VARCHAR2(2000). The header notes that although the index is sized at 2000 characters, SYS_CONTEXT supports only 30-character names, so names exceeding that length are truncated when passed through SYS_CONTEXT.

Key Procedures and Functions

The documented callable elements of FND_CONST are four functions, each exposed for internal use by other EBS packages:

• LOCAL_CHR — Returns the specified character in the current character codeset. The input is the number representation of that character in the US7ASCII codeset, allowing server-side code to emit a character that is valid in the session's NLS character set. The parameter is documented as required.
• NEWLINE — Returns the newline character as a VARCHAR2 value, providing a codeset-independent way to embed a line break in generated text or messages.
• TAB — Returns the tab character as a VARCHAR2 value, serving the same portability purpose as NEWLINE for formatted output.
• BOOL — An overloaded conversion function that maps between Boolean values and their character or numeric representations. One form accepts a BOOLEAN (defaulting to true) and returns a VARCHAR2; a second accepts a VARCHAR2 (defaulting to 'true') and returns a BOOLEAN; a third accepts a NUMBER (defaulting to 1) and returns a BOOLEAN.

The package additionally declares public constants that consumers reference directly, including UNDEFINED_I and UNDEFINED_S, the parameter mode constants MODE_IN, MODE_OUT, and MODE_INOUT, the logging keys AFLOG_ENABLED, AFLOG_FILENAME, AFLOG_LEVEL, and AFLOG_MODULE, and the application attributes APPLICATION_NAME and APPLICATION_SHORT_NAME.

Tables Accessed

No base tables or APPS synonyms are documented as being accessed by FND_CONST. The package is a declaration-only unit whose constants are evaluated at compile time and whose functions manipulate character and scalar values in memory. It therefore performs no SQL against the EBS data model, and no table privileges beyond those already granted to APPS are relevant to its use.

Usage Notes

FND_CONST is not intended for direct invocation from forms, concurrent programs, or end-user interfaces. Its internal scope and the package's role as a shared dependency indicate that it is referenced at compile time and runtime by other PL/SQL units; the ETRM metadata records that it is referenced by 12 other packages. Typical consumers include logging and diagnostics code that reads the AFLOG_* keys, message-generation routines that require NEWLINE, TAB, or LOCAL_CHR for codeset-safe formatting, and any unit that standardizes Boolean handling through BOOL or represents an unset value through UNDEFINED_I and UNDEFINED_S. Custom code in an EBS environment may reference the same constants to remain consistent with Oracle's conventions, but such use should be treated as depending on an internal, unsupported interface and validated against each release level during upgrades.