4.1 Package Overview

Oracle Application Express provides two ways to import an application into an Application Express instance:

1. Upload and installation of an application export file by using the web interface of Application Express.

2. Execution of the application export file as a SQL script, typically in the command-line utility SQL*Plus.

Using the file upload capability of the web interface of Application Express, developers can import an application with a different application ID, different workspace ID and different parsing schema. But when importing an application by using a command-line tool like SQL*Plus, none of these attributes (application ID, workspace ID, parsing schema) can be changed without directly modifying the application export file.

To view the install log, enter the following from the command-line tool, so the server outputs are displayed:

set serveroutput on unlimited

As more and more Application Express customers create applications which are meant to be deployed by using command-line utilities or by using a non-web-based installer, they are faced with this challenge of how to import their application into an arbitrary workspace on any Application Express instance.

Another common scenario is in a training class when installing an application into 50 different workspaces that all use the same application export file. Today, customers work around this by adding their own global variables to an application export file and then varying the values of these globals at installation time. However, this manual modification of the application export file (usually done with a post-export sed or awk script) should not be necessary.

Application Express 4.0 and higher includes the APEX_APPLICATION_INSTALL API. This PL/SQL API provides many methods to set application attributes during the Application Express application installation process. All export files in Application Express 4.0 and higher contain references to the values set by the APEX_APPLICATION_INSTALL API. However, the methods in this API is only used to override the default application installation behavior.