Upgrading the Forms 6i Listener to the Forms Listener Servlet

Upgrading to Oracle Forms Services 11g 13-7

13.2.5 Upgrading the Forms 6i Listener to the Forms Listener Servlet

The Forms 6i Listener was a C program that starts a Forms runtime process on behalf of an incoming Forms Web request. The Forms Web runtime process was then directly accessed by the Forms client applet, using a direct socket or an HTTP socket connection. The Forms Listener was then no longer involved in the application Web client-server communication process, and was free to handle other incoming Web requests. The Forms Listener servlet, a Java program, also takes incoming Web requests for a Forms application and starts the Forms Web runtime process. Unlike the Forms 6i Listener, the Forms Listener servlet remains between the Forms application applet-server communication. While the Forms 6i Listener listened on a specific port by default, 9000, the Forms servlet does not need an extra port, and is accessed by the HTTP listener port. The Forms Listener servlet was introduced in the Forms 6i patch 4, and is the only listener supported in Forms Services. The Forms Listener servlet is automatically configured during the installation. The installer creates a virtual path forms pointing to the Oracle Forms Services configuration, formsapp and formsweb. To access the Forms Listener servlet test form, request the following URL: http:hostname:portformsfrmservlet?form=test.fmx Ability to access this page means that the Forms Listener servlet is configured and ready to use. frmservlet is the access name configured for the Forms servlet during installation. The name of the Listener Servlet is lservlet. If the Forms Listener servlet is accessed with the Forms servlet, then only the custom application settings from the Forms60serverformsweb.cfg file need to be appended to the formsweb.cfg file. All application configurations automatically inherit the serverURL parameter value formslservlet from the global system parameter settings. To change a Forms application deployment from the Forms Listener architecture to the Listener Servlet architecture, you need only supply a value for the serverURL parameter in the formsweb.cfg file. During installation, this parameter is set to formslservlet. Follow these steps to upgrade to the Forms Listener servlet:

1.

Copy the Forms application files to a new directory and upgrade them to Oracle Forms Services modules as described in Section 13.2.2, Upgrading Oracle Forms Services Application Modules . on page 13-3. 2. Edit the formsserverdefault.env file to add the location of the upgraded Forms application modules to the Forms_Path variable. 3. Copy all of the custom application settings from source_ OH Forms60Serverformsweb.cfg and append them to destination_ Domain_Dir configfmwconfigserversWLS_ FORMSapplicationsformsapp_11.1.1configformsweb.cfg. 4. If an application requires its own environment file, then instead of defining a separate servlet alias for the Listener Servlet, set the envFile parameter in the custom application definition section in destination_Domain_ Dir configfmwconfigserversWLS_ FORMSapplicationsformsapp_11.1.1configformsweb.cfg to point to the new environment file. For example: 13-8 Forms Services Deployment Guide envFile=myEnvFile.env where myEnvFile.env is located in the formsserver directory. 5. If you changed the Oracle 6i Forms Services HTML template files, then make the same changes to the Oracle Forms Services HTML template files. 6. Start the application with this URL: http:hostname:portformsfrmservlet? config=application

13.2.6 Upgrading the Forms Listener Servlet Architecture to Oracle Forms Services