Preface

Oracle Application Express API Reference describes the Application Programming Interfaces, referred to as APIs, available when programming in the Oracle Application Express environment.

Topics:

Topic Overview

This document contains the following chapters:

Title Description
APEX_APPLICATION Use the APEX_APPLICATION package to take advantage of a number of global variables.
APEX_APPLICATION_INSTALL The APEX_APPLICATION_INSTALL package provides a number of methods to modify application attributes during the Application Express application installation process.
APEX_COLLECTION Use APEX_COLLECTION to temporarily capture one or more nonscalar values. You can use collections to store rows and columns currently in session state so they can be accessed, manipulated, or processed during a user's specific session.
APEX_CSS The APEX_CSS package provides utility functions for adding CSS styles to HTTP output. This package is usually used for plug-in development.
APEX_CUSTOM_AUTH Use the APEX_CUSTOM_AUTH package to perform various operations related to authentication and session management.
APEX_DEBUG_MESSAGE The APEX_DEBUG_MESSAGE package provides utility functions for managing the debug message log.
APEX_ERROR The APEX_ERROR package provides the interface declarations and some utility functions for an error handling function and includes procedures and functions to raise errors in an Application Express application.
APEX_INSTANCE_ADMIN The APEX_INSTANCE_ADMIN package provides utilities for managing an Oracle Application Express runtime environment. Use the APEX_INSTANCE_ADMIN package to get and set email settings, wallet settings, report printing settings and to manage scheme to workspace mappings.
APEX_ITEM Use the APEX_ITEM package to create form elements dynamically based on a SQL query instead of creating individual items page by page.
APEX_JAVASCRIPT The APEX_JAVASCRIPT package provides utility functions for adding dynamic JavaScript code to HTTP output. This package is usually used for plug-in development.
APEX_LANG Use APEX_LANG API to translate messages.
APEX_LDAP Use APEX_LDAP to perform various operations related to Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) authentication.
APEX_MAIL Use the APEX_MAIL package to send an email from an Oracle Application Express application.
APEX_PLSQL_JOB Use APEX_PLSQL_JOB package to run PL/SQL code in the background of your application. This is an effective approach for managing long running operations that do not need to complete for a user to continue working with your application.
APEX_PLUGIN The APEX_PLUGIN package provides the interface declarations and some utility functions to work with plug-ins.
APEX_PLUGIN_UTIL The APEX_PLUGIN_UTIL package provides utility functions that solve common problems when writing a plug-in.
APEX_UI_DEFAULT_UPDATE You can use the APEX_UI_DEFAULT_UPDATE package to set the user interface defaults associated with a table within a schema. The package must be called from within the schema that owns the table you are updating.
APEX_UTIL Use the APEX_UTIL package to get and set session state, get files, check authorizations for users, reset different states for users, and also to get and set preferences for users.
APEX_WEB_SERVICE The APEX_WEB_SERVICE API allows you to integrate other systems with Application Express by allowing you to interact with Web services anywhere you can utilize PL/SQL in your application. The API contains procedures and functions to call both SOAP and RESTful style Web services.
JavaScript APIs Use these JavaScript functions and objects to provide client-side functionality, such as showing and hiding page elements, or making XML HTTP Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX) requests.

Note:

In release 2.2, Oracle Application Express APIs were renamed using the prefix APEX_. Note that API's using the previous prefix HTMLDB_ are still supported to provide backward compatibility. As a best practice, however, use the new API names for new applications unless you plan to run them in an earlier version of Oracle Application Express.

Audience

Oracle Application Express API Reference is intended for application developers who are building database-centric Web applications using Oracle Application Express. The guide describes the APIs available when programming in the Oracle Application Express environment.

To use this guide, you need to have a general understanding of relational database concepts as well as an understanding of the operating system environment under which you are running Oracle Application Express.

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Conventions

For a description of PL/SQL subprogram conventions, refer to the Oracle Database PL/SQL Language Reference. This document contains the following information:

The following text conventions are used in this document:

Convention Meaning
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italic Italic type indicates book titles, emphasis, or placeholder variables for which you supply particular values.
monospace Monospace type indicates commands within a paragraph, URLs, code in examples, text that appears on the screen, or text that you enter.