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Overview

The APPS.FND_FUNCTION_W package is a thin wrapper within the Oracle E-Business Suite Application Object Library (FND) that exposes function-security testing utilities to client code. Its role is to determine whether a given function is accessible under the current responsibility, and it does so by delegating the actual work to the underlying fnd_function API. The suffix "W" indicates that the package is a wrapper around the core function-security API rather than an implementation in its own right. The package is declared with AUTHID CURRENT_USER, meaning that executing code runs with the privileges of the invoking schema rather than the definer, which is consistent with the FND security model.

The header comment records that the wrapper exists for performance-sensitive code paths and for backwards compatibility. This is significant: existing customizations and older Oracle code that already call FND_FUNCTION_W continue to function, while new development is steered toward instance-aware testing.

Key Procedures and Functions

The documented interface contains two public procedures:

• TEST — Accepts a function name and returns a result indicator. The p_result output parameter returns 'Y' when the function is accessible under the current responsibility and 'N' when it is not. This procedure performs a static function-security check only; it does not evaluate data security.
• TEST_ID — Accepts a function identifier (rather than a name) and returns the same 'Y'/'N' accessibility result. It provides the same static security evaluation as TEST, keyed by the numeric function ID.

Both procedures raise an exception on failure rather than returning an ambiguous status, so callers should be prepared to handle exceptions as well as the character result. Neither procedure accepts a specific database row or object instance, which is the central limitation documented in the header.

Tables Accessed

The ETRM metadata does not document any tables referenced directly through APPS synonyms by FND_FUNCTION_W. This is consistent with its design as a delegating wrapper: all data access is performed inside the called fnd_function API, which resolves function definitions and responsibility-to-function grants from the FND function-security tables. Because the wrapper itself does not query tables, it introduces no additional data-access footprint beyond that of the underlying API.

Usage Notes

FND_FUNCTION_W is typically invoked from PL/SQL — within Forms-based logic, concurrent program code, or custom extensions — wherever a lightweight check of function access is required. The header explicitly recommends it for cases where performance is important and for backwards compatibility.

The critical usage guidance concerns the distinction between static and instance-level security. TEST and TEST_ID evaluate only static function security; they do not check data security. Where access depends on a particular object instance (a database row), the documentation directs developers to use TEST_INSTANCE instead. New code acting on specific rows should therefore avoid this package and adopt the instance-aware API, reserving FND_FUNCTION_W for name- or ID-based function checks in legacy or performance-critical paths.