Interview Question: FieldEdit vs FieldChange

FieldEdit and FieldChange are two events that are triggered when a user changes the contents and leave a field on the page.

So why do we need two events after the field content is modified?

We know that FieldEdit is usually used to perform validations  other than standard system edits (such as Required, data type etc) and FieldChange is used to recalculate page field values.

What happens if I use FieldEdit to recalculate the page field values or FieldChange for validations?

In order to understand the reason for why there are two events, we need to understand how the component processor handles field modification.

When a user modifies the field value and tab out (or leave the field), following processing happens in sequential order.

• Standard system edits are performed .
• If there are no system edit errors, FieldEdit event is triggered.
• If there are no errors triggered from FieldEdit peoplecode, modification to the field value is accepted by the component processor and is updated to component buffer.
• FieldChange event is triggered.

Note that during FieldEdit, content of the field is not accepted by the component processor yet. It is only after successful completion of the FieldEdit without any error message, the content of the field updated to component buffer. This is exactly why we are using FieldEdit for validation.

During FieldChange, field value is already accepted by component processor and is updated to component buffer, hence it make sense to recalculate any other dependent field values in FieldChange peoplecode.

I hope the difference is clear, now please answer my questions. :)

What happens if I use FieldEdit to recalculate the page field values or FieldChange for validations?

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Getting Started on your PSFT Upgrade Training Module 1

Getting Started on your PSFT Upgrade Training Module 2

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Interview Question: MessageBox in FieldEdit

For last few weeks I have been busy doing quite a lot of interviews for recruiting new members for my team. One of the common question I used to ask during the interview is this.

Question: I have a field on a page and there is a Field Edit PeopleCode associated with this record field. PeopleCode contains only one statement

MessageBox(0,"",0,0,"Message from FieldEdit");

However when the user changes the field value on the page, this message box is not displayed. What could be the reason? 

 I was surprised to hear different wrong answers. Few of those funny answers are listed below.

• One of the junior consultant with around 3 years of experience in PeopleSoft told me that FieldEdit would be triggered only if the field is required. (I guess he derived it from the fact that FieldEdit is triggered after the system edits are validated)
• One of them (with 5 years of experience) answered that there should be some code in FieldChange otherwise FieldEdit wouldn't be executed.
•  Another gentleman said he is not sure about the reason but he would try to do PeopleCode trace and find out what the issue is.

So what is your answer? Isn't it obvious? :wink