Oracle forms 4.5 is a powerful 4GL tool for creating interactive applications. If a web client other than a forms 4.5 client needs to establish database accessibility over the Web, then this can be doneusing HTML forms. Organisations which have made large investments in Oracle database related applications need to web-enable these applications. This brings forth the requirement of a one-one mapping from an Oracle form to an HTML form.

Every user-defined form contains a set of objects, viz., text items, display items, checkboxes, etc. Each object has a set of attributes predefined for it. The aim is to write a parser which scans the form, recognises the objects, and prepares a token-list of all the objects along with their attributes. The token list is given to an HTML generator coded in C, which produces a corresponding HTML code that will retain the physical properties of the original form and links to procedures that enable database access. The database interface is maintained via an ODBC layer. Database access is facilitated using HTML along with ASP.

Thus applications requiring database access can be web-enabled.