Undertanding Associations, View Links and Master-Detail in Oracle ADF BC

In this lesson, I will explain about the Association and View Link in Oracle ADF Bussiness Components (Oracle ADF BC).

The two above concepts help you create a Master-Detail application, like the following illustration:

First of all, you need to create an ADF application with basic settings:

You can see here:

After this step, you obtain an application as the following illustration:

As you know, the Tables in the Database have a constraint with each other by Foreign Keys.

Entity Object is a concept in Oracle ADF BC, which corresponds to one Table in a database and they have a constraint with each other by anAssociation.

Thus, the concept of Association of the Oracle ADF BC is equivalent to one of Foreign Key in the Database.

View Object is a concept of Oracle ADF BC, which corresponds to the VIEW concept in theDatabase. The View Object can be based on a SQL statement.

The View Link is a constraint between View Objects, which is equivalent to the Association, a constraint between Entity Objects.

Now, we will create 2 View Objects called V05Departments and V05Employees, and then create a View Link to constraint 2 View Objects under the condition of V05Departments.DepartmentId = V05Employees.DepartmentId.

On JDeveloper select:

Check to choose "Data Source = Entity" in order to create a View Object from Entity Objects.

View Object (V05Departments) has been created.

Similarly, we continue to create another View Object named V05Employees:

The V05Employees (View Object) has been created.

Next, we will create a View Link to constraint two View Objects: V05Departments and V05Employees under the condition of V05Department.DepartmentId = V05Employees.DepartmentId.

On JDeveloper select:

Enter:

The V05EmpV05DeptViewLink (View Link) has been created.

Open adf-config.xml:

Drag and drop the View object into the adf-config.xml window:

Double click on the "view5" on the adf-config.xml window to create a source file for it.

Look for and drag and drop the "Decorative Box (ADF Faces.Layout)" object into the view5.jsf window:

Drag and drop the V05Employees1 from Data Controls into the Center region on theview5.jsf window and create a Master-Detail:

Select the view5 on theadf-config.xml window and press RUN to run.