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| Chapter 5 PL/Vision Package Specifications |

## 5.14 PLVhlp: Online Help Architechture

The PLVhlp (PL/Vision HeLP) package provides an architecture with which you can build online help for your own PL/SQL programs. See Chapter 17, PLVhlp: Online Help for PL/SQL Programs for details.

### 5.14.1 Package constants

`c_main CONSTANT CHAR(4) := 'HELP';`

  The keyword used to designate the main help for a program. This is the default kind of help to be shown.

`c_examples CONSTANT VARCHAR2(30) := 'EXAMPLES';`

  The keyword used to designate the section of help displaying examples for a program. Other keywords can be added to the package to support other kinds of sections.

### 5.14.2 Setting the page size

`PROCEDURE set_pagesize (pagesize_in IN NUMBER);`

  Sets the number of lines of help text to be displayed before a pause. The default is 25.

`FUNCTION pagesize RETURN NUMBER;`

  Returns the number of lines of help text to be displayed before a pause.

### 5.14.3 Help text stub generators

`FUNCTION help_start (context_in IN VARCHAR2 := NULL)`
`RETURN VARCHAR2;`

  Returns the string needed to start a comment to be used as online help text.

`FUNCTION help_end (context_in IN VARCHAR2 := NULL)`
`RETURN VARCHAR2;`

  Returns the string needed to end a comment to be used as online help text.

### 5.14.4 Displaying online help

`PROCEDURE show (context_in IN VARCHAR2, part_in IN`
`VARCHAR2 := c_main);`

  Displays the first page of help for the specified context.

`PROCEDURE more;`

  Displays the next page of help, if there is any.

5.13 PLVgen: PL/SQL Code Generator |  | 5.15 PLVio: Input/Output Processing

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